Dark.
Hibiscus blinked rapidly. Eyes adjusting to the confined space. Her right shoulder – mangled and throbbing. The pain from it was still sharp and reverberating across her senses.
It was dark. And warm.
Then – light, just a little bit, filtering through the gaps between the Priest's interlaced fingers. Streams of white pouring through the cracks, illuminating just barely enough to see by. Enough to wish, briefly, that she couldn't.
Hibiscus waited for her vision to adjust. Began taking in the scene, her head was turned towards her right mangled shoulder. Surrounding her was desiccated, green flesh – slightly warm – she was in a rather small space. She could feel her feet pressed against the soft, dry flesh, knees slightly bent. The same for her head and the back of her neck, felt them pressed against something soft and malleable.
It was cramped. Her spine slightly bent to accommodate the tight structure.
Hibiscus had expected nothing.
She had expected this was how she would die. The two fingers crushing her shoulder had been the last clear and excruciating sensation. She saw, through the blur of her panicked neurons firing, the right hand rising, and then foolish Sera catching her, and then the dark and warmth as the hands compressed together. She thought it was over. Had understood in the half-second before impact that this was the kind of thing they didn't come back from. They were as good as dead.
She had come back from it.
She was on her back now – in this humid darkness. The surface beneath her was lumpy – the Priest's right palm – enormous, desiccated. Interlaced fingers trapping her within. Her shoulder was throbbing with its own pulse distinct from her heartbeat. Bones crushed, muscle fibers destroyed, entirely unusable.
She turned her head from her side and looked up.
And there was Sera.
Directly above her. Forearms planted on either side of Hibiscus's head, knees bracketing her hips, back rigid and stiff in a way that indicated she was bearing something – bearing a load she wasn't designed to bear. Bearing the left hand – the one currently trying to squash them like insects.
Her face was level with Hibiscus's.
Six inches. Maybe less.
Hibiscus felt something wet land on her cheek.
She didn't move. Her eyes tracked upward – to Sera's jaw, clenched so tight the muscle was visible. To Sera's mouth, slightly open at the corners, grimace wide, something showing at the edges of her teeth that Hibiscus's professional mind registered and then refused to process.
Sera's mouth was still red. Smeared in red.
Moved up to her eyes.
Red as well. Very red. She had always known they were red. But not like this. Something about them frightened her deeply, a cold sensation that arced from the back of her neck down to the tail of her spine. She clenched her abdomen, keenly aware of how full her bladder was.
Sera was looking past her.
Not at her. Past her. Through her. Focused entirely on something Hibiscus couldn't see or locate. Her red eyes on a distant point or memory or something – very far away.
Then, the palm tightened.
Hibiscus felt it – the pressure increasing from above, the walls of the fist compressing by a fraction, the space between palms shrinking. Saw Sera bend in reaction – her forearms dipping, the rigid back curving, the geometry threatening to resolve in a direction that would be very bad for both of them in a few seconds.
Then, she felt a heat of mana surge through the confined space.
Red. Roiling. Nothing like guide work. Nothing like a guide's mana. This moved through Sera's body the way a tide moved, flooding the channels and the muscles and the architecture of her and reinforcing everything it touched into rigidity. Sera's forearms locked. Her back straightened. The knees planted harder into the palm beneath them. She watched in half fear and half awe as Sera reinforced her body – mana threading through muscles, stiffening so that their bodies weren't pressed together and crushed into a meaty paste.
Hibiscus watched Sera's pupils shift. The irises contracting and expanding in a way that had nothing to do with the filtered light coming in through the seams.
Her shoulder throbbed.
Her cheek was wet. Felt another plop land against her nostril.
Sera was drooling – on her.
"You," Hibiscus said. Her voice came out in a shaky breath – the fear arriving honest and present before she could manage it. "You."
Hibiscus swallowed.
"You're not a guide," the words tumbled out, clumsy and afraid. Golden, trembling eyes locked on red ones. Her thoughts running a mile a minute. A guide can't use mana like that. A guide can't–
The fangs. She had been not-looking at them for fifteen seconds. She looked at them now.
A guide doesn't have fangs.
Hibiscus felt something warm and wet pass between her legs. Her bladder was no longer full.
Then, Sera's eyes moved.
Slowly. The distant focus pulled back from wherever it had been and landed on her face.
Hibiscus felt another wave of fear pass through her body, watched with terrifying, wide eyes as Sera unclenched her jaw slightly.
What came out was not words at first. A wheeze – pained, effortful, the sound of someone redistributing breath they couldn't spare. She watched as Sera slowly grunted out the words.
"Not exactly– hff, –th–the time– hah–"
The red eyes, focused now. Looked directly at her. Sera cracked a pained smile.
"–Hib."
Then Sera stiffened.
Not the load-bearing rigidity that was currently keeping them from death's door – something different. Something that moved through her from the inside. The red mana that had been simmering in steady waves spiked – a pulse, sharp and sudden, flooding outward from her core and crashing back in the same motion.
Sera grunted, her back spasming.
"Stay inside," she muttered, through clenched teeth, groaning through the strain. Sharp. Directed. "Stay. Inside," she growled.
Hibiscus went very still.
"Stay inside?" she asked, voice small and trembling. Her eyes moved involuntarily – taking in the walls of the fist, the filtered light through the gaps in the fingers, the space getting smaller. "Stay inside – here? In the–"
Sera shook her head violently.
Sharp. Once. The action cost something Hibiscus couldn't understand, Sera's knees buckling fractionally. Sera's red eyes found her confused face and her clenched jaw worked around the next words.
"Not you," Sera gasped, shuddering. Hibiscus noted with distant horror, how Sera's rather long fingernails dug sharply into the Priest's desiccated flesh.
The red mana flared again. Hib felt a wave of heat burn through her nostrils. Sera doubled over – the forearms dipping, the back curving, threatening to fail – before she caught it. Straightened. The mana flooded back through her muscles and locked everything into place again.
Her face was very close to Hibiscus's now.
The fangs were still wet and visible. The dried blood, remoisturized by Sera's endless drool, still smeared across her cheek and chin. She could smell the metallic scent of blood. The red eyes – not looking past Hibiscus anymore, looking at her, present and pained and managing something.
"Not you," Sera said again. Quieter.
Hibiscus didn't have time to ask.
"Fuck," Sera gasped.
The red mana pulsed – harder this time, less controlled, the tide pattern breaking into something choppier. The forearms shaking with it.
"I can't–," Sera huffed, her shoulders trembling. Hib felt Sera's breath hot against her face.
The palm tightened. Sera's knees buckled and then re-engaged.
"I can't!"
And then Sera's head went slack.
Her black hair fell forward, curtaining her face, the rigid back losing its architecture for one terrible second – the forearms dipping, her posture threatening to collapse entirely – before something caught it.
A sudden vague sensation of pressure and a dip in temperature and then–
Sera's back straightened.
Her forearms locked.
"S-Sera?" Hibiscus said, cautiously. Her voice came out smaller than she intended.
Sera's hair shifted.
Something lifted its head and Hibiscus went very still.
The face was Sera's face. The black hair, the jaw, the bone structure she had been professionally irritated by for the better part of a year. All of it was the same. All of it was exactly as it had just been moments ago.
Except the eyes.
Sera's irises had narrowed to vertical slits. Cat pupils, dilated in the filtered light, the red of the iris contracted around them into something thinner and more precise. And the fangs were longer now. Sharper. The jaw slightly open, lips curved into a…smile?
The gaze that found her face was cold.
Cold and predatory. Something had just arrived in a space it hadn't occupied before and was taking inventory of what was happening – the palms, its body – preventing them from untimely death, and Hibiscus – below, vulnerable, and afraid.
It laughed, in Sera's voice, eyes glinting red.
A warm breath landed across her lips.
"Hello."
✦ ♡ ✦
Sera, or whatever was Sera at this moment, didn't move immediately.
It stayed where it was – forearms locked, back straight, the bracing holding – and looked around. Not urgently. Not tactically. But a slow deliberate inventory, it had just arrived from somewhere else and was taking its time with its assessment of its current situation. The cat pupils moved across the confined space – the interlaced fingers to the side, the filtered light through the gaps, the desiccated walls pressing inward – with the same cold gaze that had moved across Hibiscus's face.
Unhurried.
Hibiscus didn't move either. Her shoulder throbbed. The warmth between her legs was cooling. She was aware of both of these things with the distant clarity of someone whose body had stopped being her primary concern because something more dangerous and urgent was occupying her current attention.
The thing's gaze completed its circuit and returned to her.
Hibiscus swallowed.
"Who… who are you?" she said. Carefully. Cautiously. The words arrived with a small vocal tremor. Hibiscus kept her face straight – refused to let more of her fear show.
Sera, it, looked at her.
The red cat-like pupils moved across her face – reading her with a cold, dead meandering gaze – and then the lips curved. A smile that wasn't a smile. The grin of something that found the question amusing in the way a god finds a human's plight amusing. Small and insignificant.
"What do you mean?" it said, in Sera's voice. Easy and unbothered. "I'm Sera."
It held her gaze, red eyes burrowing deep into her soul.
"Hib," it added.
Using the nickname. The same nickname Sera had used just a moment ago between labored breaths with a pained smile. Hibiscus felt something cold move through her chest that had nothing to do with the temperature drop from before.
The palm tightened and Hibiscus watched as Sera's body tensed violently, bracing, once more.
Its gaze moved – briefly, unhurried – to the closing walls, before coming to land apathetically once more on Hibiscus.
"We're going to die," it mentioned. Conversationally, as if it were noting the weather. Not alarmed. Not urgent. Just – accurate. "Well," it added, cocking its head to the side, "maybe just you."
Hibiscus stared at it.
"What do you mean?" she asked, cautiously.
The red cat pupils found her face again.
"We don't have enough mana," it said, simple and patient.
As if in confirmation – Sera's left forearm finally buckled.
Sera's arm and the mana supporting it had reached its limit. The forearm fractured with an audible snap, white bone erupting from the soft flesh, as it caved to the pressure of the palm around it. Hibiscus wheezed in response to the sudden shift – felt their space collapse drastically as the desiccated flesh pressed tightly, now, against her right ribcage, no longer buffeted by Sera's arm.
"See?" the thing inside Sera said, eyes languidly looking around.
Not unkind. Just – confirmed.
Mana.
The thought arrived before the sentence did. Hibiscus had it. Plenty of it. More than most people in the formation, more than all the guides in the raid, with the exception of Commander Swift. A-rank wasn't just a rank for show. It was built from her genetics, her training, her family legacy and pride and devotion to being the top of her class. Years of dedicated capacity building and disciplined cycling and the kind of output that made other guides look at her sideways with jealousy during rotation checks. All she was. All she had.
Hib had mana.
She noted this dumbly, the way you noted something obvious that your brain had somehow failed to connect to the problem at hand. Sera's forearm had buckled. White bone clearly a premonition of their future. Her bracing was degrading and the palm was still closing and the thing above her had just said what it needed.
It needed mana.
She had mana.
The logic was simple. The execution was–
Her eyes moved to the cat pupils. To the longer sharper fangs. To the grin on a face that was Sera's face but also clearly someone– something else. Shivered unconsciously in response to the detached gaze currently watching her think.
How–, she thought, how do I give it?
Sera wasn't a guide. Clearly. Figured that out about forty-five seconds ago. Was she an esper? Did espers have fangs? She thought – stupefied. She was more like– Hib shivered –like a monster.
Sera, or, the thing, was still just watching her.
It hadn't moved. Hadn't rushed her. Just waited patiently, predatorily, as if the outcome didn't matter to it at all. Watching her arrive at the answer it had probably already identified.
Sera's remaining forearm shook. The mana pulsed thinner. Her back bent more than before.
Hibiscus looked at the cat pupils, at the fangs, at the grin. She swallowed noisily and let out a thick cough.
"If I give this to you–," she said, clearing her throat. Steadier than she expected. The fear was still present, it hadn't gone anywhere, but underneath it something had settled. Resolve arriving with reluctance. She wasn't going to freeze like she had before.
At least, she thought, let me die doing something.
"–promise you'll save me," she finished.
It looked at her.
Red eyes moving steadily across Hibiscus's face. Taking its time – watching her face with slow interest. The palm tightened another fraction. The forearm shook again. Sera's right knee buckled and compressed against Hib's own bent leg. The space got even smaller – even tighter.
Then it smiled.
"No," it said. Easy and unbothered. "I don't do promises."
Hib looked at it, the thing, the monster wearing Sera's face. Thoughts flying through her mind at warp speed.
She could barely keep up with what was happening. She had been in the chaotic fray of the raid one moment. And the next she was plucked into the air. Her right shoulder was destroyed – her arm most likely unusable permanently. She had been taken by the Priest and was going to be crushed in its palm. And the thing she kept indexing on, kept getting stuck on, was that Sera had come up with her.
Sera had come up with her.
Into the fist. Plunged her daggers into its flesh, caught her body, and had used her own body to keep them from being crushed to death. For reasons she didn't understand. And now, Sera wasn't even here.
Instead, something else, masquerading as her, was here.
Okay. Hib closed her eyes for one long, shaky breath. And then two. And then three. Okay, fine. And then she opened them. Golden eyes landing cautiously on the dried crimson that spread across the lower half of Sera's face.
She raised her left hand – the good one, the one without the mangled shoulder – and pressed her palm steadily against Sera's cheek.
Sera's eyes flickered in recognition – slit-like eyes widening fractionally. And Hib lifted her head up and gently pressed her mouth against Sera's fanged one.
Hib could feel it – soft lips against hers, the taste of blood and sweat, the physical structure of fangs. She felt Sera's mouth part slightly and slipped her tongue in – deepening the kiss.
Professional. Immediate. Mouth to mouth, the most direct conduit available, the guidework flowing automatically. Gently swiped her tongue against Sera's palate. But she couldn't purify what she didn't know to pull. Felt Sera's mana signature – red, warm, but it wasn't polluted. How was she supposed to give her mana exactly?
And then suddenly, something red and hot and fiery, tunneled from Sera's mouth through her own. A searing sensation, a foreign mana, lit her veins on fire. Something sharp burrowed into her core and yanked something out into the open.
Then it clicked – Hibiscus felt something like a heavy heartbeat – a heavy church bell toll from within her body like a universal law. The structure of her body vibrated – crashing and reforming in an instant.
Suddenly, she was changed.
The channel opened in a flood – a thread that was always there, had always been there – that she had never seen, had never known existed. She felt it instinctively, a knowing, a way to give what Sera needed. She felt her vessel for the first time, the whole of it, and a scene of cherry blossoms on a grassy hill, dancing along a spring wind, came to mind. Something flowed out from her easily like a raging river.
Hib pushed and poured it into Sera. Pressed so hard against her mouth, their teeth clacked together. Felt Sera's fang puncture her lip and ignored it.
Everything she had. A-rank and years of study and the guidework that didn't stop.
She pushed it all, until she felt her core hit the floor, and didn't look away from the ruby red eyes while she did it.