"I've never seen her like this before," Tadakono said softly. "It's like she's possessed."
"I wouldn't say possessed," Lack replied watching Chibi stab a Gibbet and move on to a new Branch without stopping. "I'd say she's trying to escape from something." He looked at the three of them. "You remember? She was shaking so badly last night and refused to say anything. Also with Hel saying 'your days are numbered'. I'm pretty sure that's related too."
"You think Hel did something to her?" Phenomenon asked quietly.
Lack nodded and noticed Chibi pick up a Bloody Branch. "Chibi! Not that one!" Lack darted into the room as an Incantation Samurai appeared. Chibi blinked and spread Bombs all over the place catching the Tengu and Shinobi slaves. Coating her armor and sword, she darted at the Incantation Samurai. Lack skidded to a stop just short of the field of fire.
"If that was anything but an Incant," Phenomenon said watching Chibi cut the Incantation Samurai down. "Chibi would have been dead before you reached her."
"Who would have been dead?" Chibi asked, the Incantation Samurai falling. She turned to look at them. Her cheeks wet with tears.
Lack walked towards her frustrated. Grabbing her wrist, he knocked her to the ground, pinning both her wrist under his hands. "Enough!" Lack's voice low and angry. "Tell us. Holding it in is going to hurt you much more!"
Chibi shook, her eyes holding more fear than Lack had expected. "Want to know why Hel is the Goddess of the Underworld?" Chibi said repeating automatically what Hel had said to her. "Because she takes pleasure in torturing humans to death."
"Torturing…" Lack let Chibi go and looked at her with softer eyes. "What did she do?"
Chibi sat up, her shaking starting again. "She cut my life thread short." She stared at Lack directly. "You know what that means? I won't be back. Resurrect won't work. There's no way out either. I asked Eir and she has no idea what to do." She closed her eyes and moved forwards til her head rested against his chest. "Lack…" He could hear the sadness in her voice. "I don't want to die." Lack hugged her unsure what to say.
A gust of wind blew into the room. Hel walked towards them with a smile on her face. Phenomenon, Tadakono and Syaoran stood in front of Lack and Chibi prepared to fight. Hel laughed at them. "I'm not here to fight. I'm here to congratulate Chibi on finally acknowledging it."
"It's not going to change what you did!" Chibi cried getting up with her sword in her hand. "Why are you here now? To taunt me? Or to try and find out who else might have the information you seek."
"I'm here to cut a deal with you," Hel said with an evil smile. She looked at the boys and then back to Chibi. "I'll assume you've told them the first deal I made. So here's what I propose. If you give me the information, I will restore your life thread to what it was before I cut it."
"How do I have any guarantee that you'll actually do that," Chibi asked slightly tempted. "You didn't say that you'd shorten my life thread if I refused you the first time. Yet you did it." Lack placed a hand on her shoulder. She turned to meet clear serious eyes.
"She doesn't need to give you the information," Lack said to Hel, his aura physically sparking all over the place. "So unless you have any other business here I want you to leave."
"You've just given her a death sentence," Hel said with a smile as Chibi fell to her knees at Lack's words. Hel began to fade away with the biggest smile on her face. "I'll come again before you die... Chibi."
Chibi began punching Lack hard. "What was that?! You want me to die?" Lack caught her wrists and held her still. His eyes still clear. "You have a plan…" Chibi stared at him incredulously.
"Call Eir for me," Lack said calmly. "Also, you'd of given all of us a death sentence if you give her the information. That's why she's trying so hard to get it out of you. It's possible she has no way of defeating us without the information she wants from you."
~~~
Hel stormed angrily into her room. Contra stood upright and away from a Lunatics cage quickly. "She's not giving me the information."
"I didn't expect Chibi would," Contra replied with a sigh. "She's the High Seat of the Alchemist Society. It's expected she'd hold to the Code more strongly than any other Alchemist."
"She wasn't the one who refused me this time," Hel said feeding a Lunatic a carrot with blood from the three mediators. "Lack did."
"That's a surprise," Contra replied a little shocked. "I heard that Lack would do anything to protect the lives of his guildsmen. I thought she'd be high on his list being 2nd in Command."
"I guess not." Hel replied with a shrug.
~~~
"Possible," Eir said listening to Lack's idea. "But that shortens your life thread as well. I've been looking into things after Chibi told me and there is a way. But it's dangerous." Chibi gave Lack a punch on the head for suggesting his idea. Eir coughed and continued. "It involves you re-attaining the Seed of Life."
"Forseti will murder me," Chibi cried. "Not to mention Kashy will put a stronger binding on me." Chibi paused before the deeper problem to the plan emerged. "I can't see the Seed of Life anymore."
"Does all that matter?" Eir asked her. "Aside from not seeing the seed, does the other two really matter?" Chibi thought about it carefully. "It doesn't but if I'm able to get the seed and Kashy slaps an even more difficult binding on me or Forseti murders me, it'd all be for nothing."
"I'll handle Forseti," Eir replied satisfied with Chibi's answer. "And I'm sure Lack can get BlackRose to take him to see Kashy. Under the circumstances, Kashy can't blame you because of Hel."
Chibi glanced at Lack, who nodded at her, before continuing. "Then I'll call you once I have it. Yet I'm still not sure how I'm going to see it. But I'll work out how once I get to Yggdrasil." She turned to Tadakono and Phenomenon. "If Lack's going to talk to Kashy, would you two accompany me?" She winked at Syaoran and added. "I need you to keep Lack out of trouble."
"Not funny," Lack grumbled. "Come by my room before you go. I want to give you something." Chibi jumped and hid behind Tadakono. Lack gave her a dirty look before adding "Not what you're thinking."
~~~
Lack stood outside in the night sky. Pressing the medallion, he waited. "You wanted to see me?" BlackRose asked setting down near him.
"I wasn't sure if you'd come," Lack replied tucking the medallion back into his pocket. "I haven't used this medallion in a long time." BlackRose waited listening to the wind. "Can you take me to see Kashy?"
BlackRose looked at his gloves and then asked "It's about Chibi isn't it?"
"How'd you know?" Lack said in surprise. BlackRose placed an arm around his waist and flapped her wings to fly up towards the Cloud Castle.
"Because you have one insignia glove one normal glove," BlackRose replied. "I assumed Chibi would have the other because you have no way of knowing if she's alright from the distance she's going."
"Then Kashy already knows," Lack said strained from the pressure of the wind from the speed BlackRose was flying at. "About what happened to Chibi."
"He knows that Hel needs information from Chibi and that she cut Chibi's life thread to attain it," BlackRose replied setting down onto the walkway leading to the castle. "He doesn't know what you need to talk about with him now."
"But you do?" Lack walked with her to the castle. "How do you know but he doesn't?"
"You're not the only one who has a special link to Chibi…"
~~~
Chibi pulled on the insignia glove Lack gave her onto her right hand. "This is why I hate leaving Lack behind," she murmured to Tadakono and Phenomenon. "He gets all over-protective then gives me one of his gloves to make sure I'm ok."
"If I remember correctly," Tadakono said giving her a small poke. "You took it once."
"That was to fight my shadow," Chibi snapped back. "And I guess in a small way to let him know if I needed him as soon as possible." I hope nothing happens to Lack while I'm gone. I'll murder BlackRose if she breaks her promise. "Shall we get going? Warpra doesn't have a function to warp to the base of Yggdrasil. We need to go to Niflheim and make our way from there."
~~~
Lack sat with Kashy in his tower with a cup of tea nestled in his hands. "So explain to me again why Chibi needs to get the Seed of Life a second time?" Kashy asked with his fingers pressed to his forehead. "Because I want to understand this fully before I decide overlook her going for the Seed."
"Chibi told me that Hel wants the blood combinations that can create Valkyries," Lack said slowly for the third time. "Chibi asked my advice and I told her to refuse because it would be like the doppelgangers all over again only worse. Hel decided to try another way and cut Chibi's life short in the hope that it might get her desperate enough to tell her the information she wants." Kashy nodded and Lack continued on. "Eir told us there was a way but Chibi has to attain the Seed of Life again in order to have a chance."
"And that is why you want me to overlook her entering Yggdrasil to get the Seed of Life a second time," Kashy said pacing the floor. "Under the circumstances I would overlook this instance but…" He looked at Lack. "There is the small matter of Forseti."
"Eir said that she'd talk to Forseti about it," Lack replied taking a sip of the tea. Strawberry Milk Tea… Chibi… "You'll probably hear from at least Forseti soon."
"Has Chibi already gone?" Kashy asked as he looked down from his tower to the three Mediators below.
"She would of left for Niflheim this morning with Tadakono and Phenomenon," Lack confirmed watching Kashy. "Something is bothering me though. How was Contra able to break out of the Hidden Gods binding?"
~~~
"You're going to be absent for a while?" Shadow cried watching BlackRose brush her hair. "Did you really need to make that promise?"
"You know how we three were created right?" BlackRose asked putting down her brush and picking up her cup of tea. Sensing them shake their heads, she continued. "We aren't human like Kashy, Novus and Palidor. We lack memories from the time before we became Mediators."
"But…" Shadow touched her chest knowing it was true. "What are we really?"
"Alchemical creations made by Kashy aren't we?" Balos said softly looking up and noticed Kashy watching them. "He created us with the blood from various strong people. Much like what Hel is trying to do now."
"Correct," BlackRose closed her eyes. "Normally that knowledge isn't accessible to us. But I know where the blood that created me came from, because I've been so close to them all this time. Been hard not to notice."
"Chibi and Lack?" Shadow asked a little surprised. "I guess that's true since you do possess qualities from both."
"While you and Balos must have the same blood but in differing amounts," BlackRose added. "Because you both look very similar. Like siblings almost. And you're very much in sync with each other, even when I first met you."
"I guess so…" Shadow said glancing at Balos. "I wonder who's blood we were created from."
"I'm going to be absent because I'm going to be taking Chibi's place for a while," She stood and used Disguise. Wind sprang up around her, hiding her from view. When it died, a small blue Creator stood in her place. "I spoke to Kashy about it already. I'm going to be taking on Chibi's aura and appearance in the hopes to fool Hel and find out her true plans."
"Does Lack know this?" Shadow asked getting up and looking over every inch of BlackRose's disguise. "He does mock battles with Chibi often."
"As far as I know," BlackRose replied sitting down with a sigh. "Kashy hasn't said anything to Lack. But he probably will…" She looked up to see Kashy and Lack approaching them. With a smile, she got up and did a small bow, an almost perfect impression of Chibi.
"Good but not quite," Kashy said with a smothered laugh. "And Chibi wouldn't bow to me. She likes to joke around more than anything else. She'd probably only bow to Odin and Eir."
"You look so much like her," Lack said surprised. "But even I can spot the difference." He came up and gave BlackRose a slap on the back causing her to lean slightly forward. "Chibi usually looks relaxed but she has a slight slouch in her posture. She straightens if she's worried about something or deep in thought." He leaned back looking at her up and down with a satisfied nod. "Much better."
"But still not quite," Kashy added glancing at Lack. "There's no way that BlackRose will be able to perfectly emulate Chibi's personality."
"We'll see…"
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