Bleak Blood Bind

Kiera tossed and turned in her borrowed bed, sweat beading on her forehead. Images and sounds played in her head, disjointed and carrying meanings she couldn’t recall. Her frenetic dream jumped scenes; she was a child in worn clothing in one, looking longingly at others play, then she was herself only a few weeks back, putting on the fresh uniform of Ashcroft in a foreign form.

Back and forth memories played, some she knew intimately, others like she was seeing them for the first time, completely lacking context. They passed by with growing intensity, blurring into a cacophonous mess until Kiera snapped awake with a strained gasp. Her heart raced as she struggled to throw the blanket draped over her off, her flailing limbs tangling it into a mess.

It felt as if someone was on top of her. A thin woman with sleep tousled blonde hair invaded her thoughts, persistent in her minds’ eye. Eventually, she threw the now bundled blanket away, the sensation of the woman gone in that instant. She stumbled her way to her feet, eyes darting about to every corner of the unfamiliar room. It seemed to fluctuate between being too small and too large at the same time and Kiera staggered her way to one of the walls.

Everything in the room began to whisper at her, the feel of dozens of pairs of eyes affixed upon her. Flashes overwhelmed her senses even as she tried to shut them out, snapshots of the blonde and a short balding man in various poses played in her mind, excerpts embedded upon the items around her. Kiera focused inward, following a mental exercise she couldn’t recall where she learned or from whom.

She let darkness surround her, creating a barrier between herself and the fragments of energy clinging to everything around her. The sensations around her slowly faded away, until there was nothing but her own thoughts. Within her trance-like state, she was acutely aware of the ruined nature of her psyche. The memories since waking up were the most intact, but there was a static like sound when she tried to recall them and everything was slightly blurry, making it difficult to make out what had happened.

Still, the kindness shown to her came through the haze and Kiera found herself smiling. It didn’t last as older memories began to encroach upon them, fewer in number but more preserved. A state that let the horrible things they contained play without anything to disguise the subject matter.

Kiera sharply recalled her initial negative reaction to Flora stabbing the bound man, her eyes reflexively snapping shut just before the deed was done. She couldn’t recall why the act was done, nor what followed after, but she knew it wasn’t a one off event, even if she didn’t remember prior killings.

Bile rose up Kiera’s throat and her meditation broke as she shot up to her full height, horror and guilt causing her heart to race. She couldn’t remember how she reacted to other atrocities her ‘allies’ had done, nor could she count the number that had happened before, but with ‘fresh’ eyes, every fiber of her being revolted against it.

The room swam as she stumbled around it, her vision blurred by tears. Her arm hit something on a low bedside table, knocking it to the ground with a crash. The brief contact let her see an impression of the balding man before it exploded in time with the object, sending a wave of pain lancing through her head.

A scream tore from her throat. It wasn't just because of the moment of pain brought out by the breaking of whatever she had knocked over, but from thousands of sudden, burning pricks across her whole body, like hot needles were stabbing into her.

Her disoriented steps brought her to the door, and through jerking motions, she was able open it, falling out into a bright hallway.

There were people coming, drawn to her cries and thrashing, but they seemed impossibly far away as she was assaulted by the stings of her sins. She curled into a ball, the will to persist leaving her.

---

John shot out of the room, the remaining occupants each shouting after him some variety of “What’s going on?”

“Kiera’s up and having some kind of episode,” John delivered as he sped down the hallway. Senka relayed their location, but John didn’t need the directions as he followed the mix of sobs and yelps of pain that pointed to Kiera’s position. John stopped short once he reached the scene.

Kiera lay on the floor a meter from it, her body curled into itself, hands over her ears. Vivian had bent down and was trying to soothe the distressed girl while Aeolia, Beth and Senka stood a little bit away, all of them looking at a loss for what to do.

“Uh, it's going to be okay, Kiera," the redhead said hesitantly. She repeatedly moved to touch the distressed bluenette but stopped short, a look of uncertainty on her face.

John fired off an Observe, hoping something in it would clue them in.

'She wants this to happen?' John thought with disbelief.

"She must think it a way of atoning for her part in the deaths Phantom Reach committed," Harker's voice sounded from behind him. John half spun around to find him supported by Lynn and Martius, a very mismatched pair of helpers.

John saw Harker’s eyes snap from Kiera to Aeolia for a moment before landing on him.

"She's drawing in the pain of everyone whose blood is within the sword," Harker explained.

"How the fuck do you know that?" Aeolia demanded.

"I can feel it," the dark haired man said. "We can go over the details later, but right now we need to get Kiera to stop using her magic."

"Will a disruption sort of effect work?" John asked, thinking of Hex.

"Let's try to get her to come back to us the old fashioned way," Harker advised. "Foreign spellcraft might cause her to push harder against herself. We need something for her to focus on the here and now."

"What about her stuff?” John asked, a spark of inspiration flashing in his mind. "She got attached to a magic 8-ball and picked out a sketch pad herself."

"That could work," Harker said, his voice growing strained.

"We put them in the room," Vivian recounted.

"I'll get 'em," Aeolia said, shrinking down and darting in the room beyond Kiera. A moment later she shot back out, the ball and pad cradled in her arms.

She flew down next to Vivian and dropped the items, flying up to the redhead’s shoulder as she had them return to full size.

"Kiera, we've got your sketch pad here," Vivian softly intoned, lightly pushing the pad towards Kiera. "We were hoping you'd show us what you were working on."

Kiera just kept alternating between sobbing and letting out pained cries. John swept over her sheet once more, trying to think of anything he knew about her that they could leverage to get her to focus on them. His eyes lingered on the words relating to her view of him.

"Let me try," John said, closing the gap with purposeful steps, and bent down to pick up the 8-ball before he knelt beside Vivian.

"Kiera, can you come back to us?" John asked after clearing his throat with a light cough. He lightly pushed the trinket towards her, placing it close to where her hand pressed into her ear. "We don't want to see you like this."

"W-why?" Kiera managed to ask, the single word slipping out between grasps of pain. "I was- I'm with the bad guys. We hurt so many people. I can't even help you against them. I don't remember anything important."

"So that means you're just going to let yourself waste away?" Aeolia asked in a demanding tone, not holding anything back.

"Lia!," Vivian began to reprimand the winged woman, but Aeolia cut her off.

"No, she needs to hear this," Aeolia firmly said, jumping down and landing right in front of Kiera’s face. "Your old group has done a lot of crap, but even if you're feeling everything their victims felt, that's not going to help anyone else they target. It's not going to stop them. You want some amount of forgiveness for your part in this? Then you're going have to work for it. Got it?"

Aeolia's impassioned words seemed to reach Kiera and for a moment she looked at her with a spark of hope in her reddened eyes before her body contorted in pain.

“I,” she fought to say through the pain, “I can’t stop it.”

“It’s become self-sustaining,” Harker spat. Before he could say anything more, the last four guests of Martius’ lab/living space came on to the scene.

“Second time today something big's happened,” Aria remarked, her glibness not matching her serious expression.

“One of those days I suppose,” Martius grunted. “If you have any insights that might be helpful, we would be grateful.”

“What exactly is going on?” Piper asked, her eyes sweeping over the scene.

Harker looked uncomfortable with including more people into this, but a strained scream from Kiera broke his resolve.

“Most likely psychic resonance from her connection to an artifact used to kill people,” the pale man replied tersely.

“And her abilities let her tap into people’s aura and use that to shapeshift,” John added quickly, not caring that he was giving that info to a person hired to spy on him.

Piper slipped past everyone else and stopped just behind John. She closed her eyes for a moment before staring down at Kiera.

“Her mana looks like something’s dropping into it,” the green haired investigator reported. “Kind of like how a lake looks during the rain. You know, drops and ripples. There’s also a sort of inward pulling current to it.”

“We need to get her to focus on pushing instead of pulling,” Harker barked. “Even if she’s no longer resigned to her suffering, her emotions are still letting in the associated psychic trauma.”

“I’m trying,” Kiera managed to say through clenched teeth. “Can’t do it. Too much pain.”

“Try that negation technique,” Harker ordered John and the Gamer was quick to oblige. Hex flew from his fingers, focusing on the pulling aspect of Kiera’s mana. When his disruptive skill hit her, he felt a sensation of being pulled towards her, one that weakened a second later.

“It’s,” Kiera **** out, “getting less painful, but I can’t…”

A burst of pain turned her words into a pained cry, showing that even with Hex weakening the pull, the pain was still being transmitted at a rate too great for her to **** it back.

‘Perhaps she needs a stronger reason to fight,’ Senka privately remarked to John. ‘Even with Aeolia’s decree, her guilt must outweigh the desire to fight back. Enough to prevent her from mustering enough willpower to end her downward spiral.’

‘Or we just need to weaken it more,’ John thought back as he fired off another Hex.

Prior instance of the same type Hex in effect. Duration extended.

John bit back a curse as his second Hex only increased the amount of time the effect would run for, hating himself for not testing what would happen if two Hexes were cast at the same target. His mental chiding stopped short when he reread the display still hovering in front of his eyes.

‘‘Same type Hex’. The way that’s worded makes it sound like the elemental variants can work alongside the normal Hex. Then, maybe…’

It took only one look at Kiera’s continued suffering for John to make up his mind and Senka’s vessel appeared in his hand. Thankfully, Kiera’s eyes were closed when it did, so the sudden appearance of the knife didn’t add to her distress and his body blocked it from everyone behind him. But not the few near him.

“Wait, you’re not thinking of…” Aeolia began to question his decision.

“If it can take some of the pain away, then yeah, I’m thinking of it,” John cut her off. “Besides, I’m only going to be able to take some of it on.”

“You have something that will divide the pain?” Martius hurriedly asked.

“Yeah. Same skill as the negating one but uses dark mana to transfer some of the effect to me,” John explained as fast as he could, Hex’ duration was wearing down and he wanted to get as much benefit as they could. “Both effects should work at the same time, and between taking some and depressing another bit, it could be enough so Kiera can focus on pushing back.”

“Do it,” Harker ordered, his voice growing rough. A glance back from John showed that Lynn and Martius had leaned Harker against the wall, an arm extended towards him. “I have enough in me to help her, but only if she can begin the process herself.”

John nodded, and as he began to draw in the dark mana, said to Kiera, “We’re going to do one more thing. Once it works, I’m going to need you to give it your all. All right?”

Kiera managed to just nod and John fired off the dark empowered Hex. Pain flared across every inch of his body, the sensation like heated needles poking into his flesh. John grit his teeth, determined to fight through it, to show Kiera that he was here to help her.

---

Kiera felt a cool magic wash over her, a soothing sensation followed by further lessening of the searing pain that needled her. It felt safe to her, even as pain continued to pulse through her body. She managed to open her eyes to see John kneeling before her, his face and body tense.

'Why are they fighting so much for me?' she could not help but question. Nobody ever had; that much she knew even with her memory in tatters. Her eyes flicked to Aeolia. She knew Phantom Reach had targeted the winged woman's former guild, wiping them out except for her.

And yet, she was the one to deliver an order for her to keep going. To atone through action and not through suffering a punishment. Her frayed mind replayed the only memories that were in as pristine a condition as they could be, the ones from the last day. The ones where these people that were harmed by both her action and inaction cared for her when she was in the worst mental state.

Kiera knew a part of that was so they could press her for information but they didn't treat her as a prisoner. They let her move about John and Brenda's house, tried to find ways to communicate with her, and brought her a sketch pad.

'They helped me,' the thought echoed through her mind. She repeated it over and over, growing louder each time. A warmth blossomed in her chest and strength began to flow through her.

'And I'm not going to throw that away!’

Kiera pushed back against the pain assailing her, envisioning her will like a wave rushing to each of the points where she was being needled. It took her a second to realize there was too much to simply fight back. As long as one of the mental needles remained embedded in her psyche, the others would come back once her repulsion faltered, the link between her and the source maintaining the effect.

She could feel that now, a murky thick strand that relayed the pain of Phantom Reach’s victims to her. A link established by the blood she gave to the blade. She couldn’t really remember the reasoning Flora gave for why they had to donate blood, but she had just as everyone else had.

A sudden and atypical rage began to course through her. She hated everything they did, everything she did or let happen because she wasn’t able to stand up to them, even if she couldn’t remember each transgression.

Kiera lashed out against this link to her blood tainted past. Her memory might have been ruined, but the fear, frustration and self-hatred remained. And she would use them to fight back. First to escape Phantom Reach’s hold on her, and later, to help take them down.

Her will turned from raw **** into a sharp edge and she struck the link with all her power. It snapped right as the numbing effect of John’s magic began to fade, the pain flaring back slightly before vanishing completely. A weightless feeling settled over Kiera and she managed to see a look of relief wash over John before her vision darkened and she smiled as she passed out.

---

“She’s just ****,” Lynn reported, moments after pushing John and Vivian away from Kiera so she could examine her. “You pawing at her isn’t going to help her get up.”

“She’s going to be all right, right?” John asked the alchemist.

“Physically, she is,” Lynn reported. “I can’t say anything about the state of her mind.”

“It does seem like she was able to fight it off,” Martius chimed in. “Hopefully that means there won’t be any further complications.”

“She was filled with resolve when she did whatever she had to fix the situation,” Harker said. “And she was relieved when it passed.”

“What exactly did you do to help?” Piper asked. “Her mana looked like it was starting to boil.”

“Sanguimancy,” was Harker’s tired reply. “A simple application to bolster her strength. While not a mental effect, the surge of vital energy does help to sharpen one's mind. It’s why I needed her to take the first step. It wouldn’t have helped if she couldn’t.”

“Handy,” Aria commented, already beginning to turn and leave. “If there isn’t anything you need from us, we’ll go back to our room. Hopefully there won’t be a third time. I think everyone could use some uninterrupted rest.”

“Rest would be nice,” Beth muttered, her eyes drifting to John. He tried to shoot her a reassuring grin but the lingering sensation of pain made it a halfhearted gesture.

“I think that’s a sentiment all of us can get behind,” Martius chuckled. “Too many things happening all at once. Leaves us all a little frazzled. We should get Miss Kiera into bed and wait for her to naturally wake up.”

No one had any issue with having more time to recover. John carefully scooped Kiera up. She snuggled into his arms and John felt a hot blush begin to cross his cheeks. He made his way into her borrowed room and gently placed her on the bed. As he left, he found himself issuing a prayer to Gaia, hoping Kiera would pull through.

Don’t get into the habit of me directly answering, but I’ll be nice after all you’ve been through. She’s not in a worse state. Take that how you will.

With some level of assurance, John left the room, hoping she would wake soon to alleviate the remaining worry.

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