So… rather unsurprisingly, Tobias—Toby? Emilia really needed the kid to fully wake up so she could ask what name he preferred—didn’t stay passed out through his summoning array being burned off. The course events went as follows:
First: Emilia used her array destroying gift on the kid’s summoning array.
Second: Emilia’s {Blood Ball} exploded around them, and for a brief few moments, Emilia realized that perhaps the first time it activated, it wasn’t so much that it was keeping her voice contained, but rather that it was creating a barrier in case someone came along and attacked them. Stars knew that if someone had shown up when she burned off Conrad’s summoning array, they’d have all been dead. Same now: the pain racketing through her as her gift leaked down the lines of Tobias’ summoning array was so intense that Emilia would have been helpless were someone to come along and try to kill them. Forget about fighting off an attack, she would have welcomed death.
Third: Tobias woke up, and the pain Emilia had been experienced intensified. Also, apparently there was a chance Conrad hadn’t fought her, even mentally, on the whole destroying his summoning array thing. Tobias fought, and he fought hard. The entire array removal operation lasted far longer than it had with Conrad—or any other array—and in the end, biting her tongue through the pain, Emilia had had to knock the kid out again!
Fourth: The {Blood Ball} retracted and Emilia was left exhausted—more from fighting Tobias into complacency than the actual process of destroying the array—and with a very unconscious kid on her hands.
That, and a new blood item, created from the random local’s blood.
Swiping up the small {Blood Coin} and tucking it under one of the straps of her {Blood Armour}, Emilia heaved Tobias into her arms. Well, not so much heaved as lifted him. Either he weighed almost nothing—possible, the kid was practically skin and bones for how thin he was—or her level was now enough to make carrying a teenager nothing—also possible.
Either way, off she went, letting the gentle pull of the universe guide her way to… a wall. Specifically, one of the outer walls. It wasn’t the one she had entered through, but at least this time she’d gone down so many flights of stairs, her energy searching for any rhyme or reason as to where the locking mechanisms were hidden. Luckily, there was a pattern to their locations, and while it stretched her core control to the limit, after several long minutes of concentrating and hoping that no locals stumbled onto them—one child did, and Emilia was able to convince them to go away—the access door opened and in they went.
Carne said to go down, and down was currently working for her, so down Emilia took herself and Tobias. That said, she only went down a single city level before setting Tobias on the floor, quietly apologizing to him, and proceeding to all but strip search him.
If this kid had the mass destruction grade blood weapon from Salsetrun, she was going to find it. Unfortunately, after several minutes of searching and finding a bunch of blood items that seemed a bit too normal, Emilia had no idea whether she’d found it or not.
[Emilia: is there any way to tell a blood weapon that can destroy a city system from a normal one?]
[Boundary: Trust me, you’ll be able to tell. Don’t you remember holding that weapon you gave me? The loop? That thing was definitely mass destruction grade.]
[Rin: How did you end up with a mass destruction grade weapon?]
[Emilia: stole it from the asshole who basically destroyed Livery after i killed him]
Thinking back… yeah. The {Blood Loop} had definitely been giving off terrible vibes—that was the main reason she really hadn’t wanted to keep hold of it: it simply felt bad, and she wouldn’t have been surprised if people started showing up, looking for it.
None of the items she’d pulled off Tobias felt dangerous—not like that, anyways. Some were definitely weapons, but none seemed any more dangerous than her own, more normal weapons.
That was… disappointing, and annoying. It was one thing to just not have a weapon that powerful, but at this point, they and the entire Risen Guard were convinced that the Haym family had triggered the creation of the blood weapon in Salsetrun.
So, where was it?
Either the Haym family was keeping it out of this whole debacle, intent to use it later—probably for some heinous plot after the visitors left—or someone else had it. That was the problem: that there could be someone else inside the Clarity City System, just waiting to pop up and—
Tobias started, and Emilia totally didn’t scream.
⸂Fucking stars, you scared me,⸃ Emilia breathed out, hand clasped to her heart, beating too fast in her chest—seriously, the kid had been out cold! She’d figured she’d have a while longer before she’d have to figure out what to do with the kid because that was the issue now: leave the kid to live out the last day of the raid and return to his body naturally, or kill him.
Unfortunately, as cold as it was, Emilia was leaning towards the latter. Not only was the kid a wild card, but who knew what would happen if a Clarity member happened upon him. They could very well start forcing him to go through labyrinths, desperate to gain a little more power. Then, Conrad would have another heartcore corrupted family member to deal with, and actually! That kinda cinched it.
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Step one, figure out if the kid knew anything about the weapon of mass destruction! Step two, make sure he hadn’t been completely corrupted by the heartcores—and then panic about what to do if he had been. Step three, kill him.
⸂Hello, Tobias—or do you prefer Toby?⸃ Emilia asked, trying to seem friendly. She’d had a lot of practice soothing children over the last few weeks and felt like she managed to come off as someone trustworthy, not that Tobias seemed to care.
“E-either is fine,” the boy stammered, reminding her of the fear he had shown the first time they met, when V had dragged him in and—
Tobias’ eye flicked away, and dude, the fuck was up with this kid!? He’d barely acknowledged her the first time, and apparently he was intent to ignore her this time as well. Maybe she reminded him of the sister who had styled herself with fake-silverstrain colouring? Other than noting that the girl was a little whiny and Livia seemed to like her, Emilia didn’t know much about her. As such, she couldn’t say if the boy was afraid of his sister, the fear transferring to her, or what.
Either way, when she tried asking him about, well, anything, he refused to answer or even acknowledge her questions. Rude!
⸂Who was the man you were with?⸃
Silence.
⸂What happened after we saw each other last?⸃
Silence.
⸂Did you return to that city? The one that had been destroyed?⸃
Silence.
⸂Do you know anything about a weapon created from the blood of all the people who died in that city?⸃
Silence, but at least this time his expression shifted slightly. His death glare into the distance behind Emilia flicked to the side, Tobias’ head tilting ever so slightly, as though he were tempted to look behind him.
Emilia’s map didn’t show anything behind him, so unless someone else had the same, anti-tracking ability he had—the kid definitely didn’t show up on her map and Emilia was not risking moving her eyes off him because if he ran away, she’d never find him—there was no one for him to look towards, no saviour hiding in the shadows, waiting to swoop in and off her.
Why look behind himself then?
Mind flipping back through the thoughts she’d had over why this kid might have ended up with the weapon, rather than someone more trustworthy, Emilia tried not to stall as one particular thought returned to her.
⸂Do you know what happened with your brother and mother?⸃ she asked, instead of traumatizing the kid by stripping him, searching for answers. ⸂Hmm… I guess you have a lot of brothers. The one who’s really quiet?⸃
Tobias didn’t respond, shockingly, but his attention leaked towards her, curious.
Well, attention was better than nothing, and Emilia began to relate the situation with the heartcores to him. He didn’t say anything—didn’t even look her way—but his fingers did curl into fists, his lips pressing tighter.
⸂Did you enter as many labyrinths as either of them?⸃ Emilia asked, hoping that she might at least get an answer about this out of him. ⸂Look, I’m just worried about you, is all. I’m worried about every hero who entered this raid at this point, to be honest. Those things are super dangerous, especially since we don’t know if the effects will follow us back to our world. I know it might not be the most useful thing for me to know if you’ve been inside too many, but if you have, maybe it would be proof your family is okay? That it was just in our imagination that the heartcores were affecting heroes?⸃
Emilia felt a little bad, lying to the kid, especially since he was clearly… not used to people manipulating him? Or, perhaps he was? Obviously, she hadn’t seen much of his family, but her sense had more been one of a demanding family, where manipulation wasn’t needed on the simple fact that violence would be threatened and exacted, were someone to say no.
Maybe she was wrong, maybe the family was the more manipulative than her brief moments with them had suggested. Clearly, someone was manipulating the kids into viewing their father as someone they didn’t speak badly of, at the very least.
Tobias hesitated, but then he shook his head, muttering that he’d only visited one—that his family had left him behind every other time.
⸂Oh… well, that sucks, but kinda works to your advantage. Want to answer any of my previous questions?⸃
Silence. Shocking.
Well, at least Emilia didn’t have to feel too bad about reaching out and pressing a hand to the boy’s chest. Clearly, he hadn’t been paying too much attention when she blasted his local maybe-captor, maybe-babysitter, maybe-both away, his eyes widening not in fear but surprise, and something uncomfortable.
⸂Don’t get in your uncle’s way,⸃ she told him. ⸂He’s just trying to help your mom and brother.⸃
Confusion entered the boy’s eyes, but it was too late. Energy swam through Emilia’s meridians, and then the boy was gone, a splatter of blood over the wall. With any luck, his death hadn’t been painful, and the boy would just pop back into his body, wondering what in the stars had just happened.
In the meantime, Emilia was left wondering over the amount of blood the boy’s death had created, a veritable waterfall dripping down the wall and stairs. Granted, human bodies held a lot of blood, but she’d killed several people this way, and none of those deaths had been nearly this bloody, especially considering the blood in Tobias’ lower half was still inside it, only his upper body having been destroyed.
His legs sprawled beside her, pants soaking in blood that was leaking out of stars knew where.
It was as though the kid’s body had contained an entire city’s worth of blood, just as she’d suspected. If she could have a {Blood Tattoo}—strange and useless as it seemed to be—why couldn’t someone else? What better reason to leave a weapon with someone, than if it were literally a part of them.
So yes, when Emilia had remembered that passing thought about why Tobias might have been left with the weapon of mass destruction, when she had seen his eyes flick backwards, almost as though looking towards his back and a weapon etched across it, she had decided he had to die.
As annoying as it was, she had assumed the weapon would be destroyed along with him. That was, perhaps, illogical.
Blood weapons were nearly impossible to destroy. Why should this one, inside Tobias as it had been, be any different.
The blood bubbled, and Emilia knew what was coming next—was prepared for the blood to shoot towards her, making a home for itself inside her. She thought she’d been prepared for the pain, remembered from when she and V had gained their useless {Blood Tattoos}, formed from the blood of Boundary and Taoran.
That pain was nothing compared to the thousand of lives making a home for themselves inside her skin, every prick of bloody ink across her skin a story of a lifetime of love and suffering—last moments of terror pressing inside her until she thought her entire body might explode. Where the entirety of the tattoo on her back had told some strange, shattered story—a story that had probably belonged to Boundary and Taoran, meshed together until it made no sense—this tattoo told the story of a city, of all the lives lived, loved and lost within its borders.
This tattoo told a story of the end.