𝐜𝐮𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐯𝐨𝐢𝐜𝐞.

The first thing he realizes when his heart stops jackhammering, stops thinking it is somewhere it isn't, and his mind catches up to the realm of the waking, is that he's fully armored, despite having gone to bed in his usual baggy sweats; the Colt sits heavy at his thigh, too, beneath one of his coat tails, despite his tendency these days to leave it home more often than not.

The second thing he realizes is that he is completely alone in this cell.

Before his mind has time to start spiraling with worry there's a loud hiss, and his door's open. Vash barrels through without a second thought, goal formed crystal clear in his mind in an instant, as sharp eyes scan s o many others making for their escape, all vying for an exit- any exit, any way back.

He has people to find, first.

The planet far beneath(?) them, the great expanse spread wide; though Vash had near-immediately categorized them, had grasped exactly where they were, it came with a familiarity that made him level-headed, despite the alarm still blaring. Had to, after all; him being here wasn't what worried him.

his hand's hovering above a control panel mounted on the wall when he hears him. There is nothing like that voice-- one that still sends ice careening directly through his veins, seemingly no matter how much time they're given to thicken themselves.

" ... I don't know," Vash replies, voice surprisingly even, even to his own ears.

"From what I gather we're on the moon, but-- why this place is here, or what it is, is anyone's guess." The cells, even with their doors wide open, still leave an agitated buzzing beneath his skin.

"Goin' off of instinct, here," he says, nodding towards the panel. Even without the familiar sting of threads pressing down, down into muscle and nerve, he still feels frozen in place.

Vash had never been the one with all the tech smarts, though. He'd learned the basics ( and, by extension, far more than most back home ) simply by virtue of having lived upon the fleet. But this isn't necessarily close to then, and anything further than that, and he'd always looked over the shoulder of-

"Knives?!"

His head jolts back to the side, this time returning to facing the door he'd been working on. The buzzing of that ever-open gateway between the two of them seems to throw the gates open wide, a tunnel shortened to little more than an archway, even with the barrier between them.

The potential of having the both of them here at once-- it makes Vash's muscles tense far more than the alarms. Still-- he cannot leave his brother to fend for himself, not being so new to the island.

That, and he had made a promise.

"Are you there?"

He isn't alone. But he can't bring himself to panic, watching in silence as dozens of others rush out of their prison cells - if the structures can be called such, given how they seem to open on their own once everyone is back on their feet, shouting and running towards the first exit.

There's an uncomfortable stir in the pit of his stomach, a flare of terror that shoots up and grips his cranium - the only visible reaction is the slight stagger in his step as the familiar sensation thrums through his system.

Waking up is the second most unsettling part of it.

He hadn't slept or been unconscious since waking up on the edge of the spiral. Had he, and everyone else in here, died again? Seems like an odd thing to forget. The last memory he can recall is an evening stroll through Mistwood.

It's like he had blinked and suddenly found himself imprisoned.

The narrow hallway is empty by the time he exits the room, glad to leave the sight of the prison cells behind him. The walls surrounding him are white and sterile, the small buttons on the control panels blinking in and out as he passes by.

It's all a bit too familiar for comfort. Knives remembers sitting in front of similar screens for hours on end, studying each button and combination, refusing to budge. Not until his concentration was broken by-

His head snaps up towards the call of his name, half of it audible in his ears and the other half inside his head. The static electricity whirs through his mind, making him quicken his pace. A single turn around the corner puts him face to face with his brother - and his ex-employee.

" - what is all this? "

Legato frowns with frustration, remaining still on his feet like the steel columns that held the ceiling up.

" We're being toyed with. The sooner our captor is discovered, the sooner they can be terminated. I have no plan to stay in this miserable cage, " the puppeteer remarked with an unpleasant sneer on his face.

He had reasons to believe that the brothers would be ill-suited for teamwork.

As sirens continued to blare overhead, and the denizens of Spirale rushed past them like a herd of farm animals escaping their pen, Legato cracking his neck. Lifting his hand, he twitched his fingers to test the strength of his threads. To his dismay, the very same limitations he was cursed with upon arrival to this world had returned to him.

" Our abilities are dulled. Still. . . " His thought trails as the sound of metal-on-metal impact thunders down the hallway with a low groan.

" It is either claw your way out, or wait to be killed, " Legato cut a glare at Knives in particular. Words lingered on his tongue: pull your own weight.

But he dared not say it. Not right now.

It seemed as though the commotion had summoned an unpleasant guest to their torment.

Somehow, Cthoni has managed to find her way out of the... bright ward that she has been placed in for residence. She is so unfamiliar with just walking, that it's too foreign. Still, she somehow has found some paper scraps to write on, and she's taking note of interesting places.

He cracked his neck, and checked his phone to see whether or not Namine had reached out to him. She was out for the day; sometimes she lingered in the studio and helped out, but, he didn't want her stuck inside while the weather was nice.

After checking his messages, his eyes flickered to the side, where he noticed a young woman standing nearby. Legato tilted his head. He'd only seen a scalp of blue hair like his own when speaking to his other self.

She hesitates and another flower sprouts as she stays quiet. "Are you sure?" The Nobody asks, keeping her head down now.

But that didn't mean he had to allow Namine to experience the end result of this infestation, if it turned fatal.

" I do not know, " he admits, surveying the small blossoms. He carefully touches one, and narrows his eyes in observation.

" Some have shown more extreme prominence than others, " Legato explains.

" What I do know is that it worsens if you don't speak the truth. . . That is what I have heard. "

A pause.

" You must be carrying something within yourself, something you are shielding near and dear. "

That would be too much to ask.

He rarely visited memories. Many things were not worth remembering. His entire existence had been built upon making the world that had hurt him and his brethren into a place they could live in without fear. What happened in between was, ultimately, meaningless.

Knives remembers the battered boy who sat before him in the sand, so pitifully small and having suffered unimaginable pain and cruelty in the hands of his own kind. Not once after could he give himself a satisfactory explanation on why he took him along, nor why had he stopped to wait for the boy to catch up to him several times during the long walk across the desert.

He had made sure he lived through those first difficult years that followed. Then, he mauled him beyond recognition.

What he didn't remember was how tall the man had gotten since, not until he was standing just a few steps away from him.

He speaks like Knives is any stranger loitering in front of the door. He tilts his head, gaze drifting aside before giving the faintest scoff. His rigid posture eases, even if only slightly, shoulders lowering.

Mundane tasks were what populated his days now. The life of thankless murder was behind the disciple.

Maybe that was why he did not recognize him.

The idea of that man being here simply did not mesh with his new life.

Millions Knives had a voice that could never be confused for another. It cut through everything, like everything else about him. Nothing mattered to the wicked angel. Everyone was destined for their blood to dress his blades.

And so when the stranger speaks, Legato freezes in place. The shake he was sipping from is grasped firmly, before he drops it.

Golden eyes slowly creep over, staring at the ghost of his master who stood on the sidewalk, observing him through strands of blue hair.

It was him--

Bold, and rotting.

" . . . Master Knives? Why are you here? "

His words lacked the reverence he once used. Instead, each syllable rattles out of Legato Bluesummers with confusion, with caution-- with anger.

So much anger, so much so that he didn't notice the way his teeth cut into the inside of his mouth. Looking at him made every single vertebra in his spine ache.

This iteration of his master gawked at the entire concept of those behaviors. Anything that made him appear human was revolting.

He reaches over, taking one of the candied petals, and eats one.

" It's tastier like this. Plain hibiscus is better in tea. I've learned a lot about different foods in this city-- many that could never grow in the desert without intervention of Plant energy. "

Legato lids his eyes in thought.

" That isn't how anything works here, " he glances to the independent Plant bundled in the safety of his gate.

"Wouldn't... weed killer hurt you?" Comes the voice of the blonde right next to Legato's side.

" Namine. . . Your hair, " he reaches down with a cautious hand hovering over the forget-me-not; his fingers flinch back. Simply placing his hand in the presence of the flower was enough for blue cornflowers to bloom on his arm, a trail of them opening up bit by bit.

It may very well be too late for weedkiller.

The disciple narrows his eyes with confusion.

That tranquility doesn't-- can't-- belong to them now. Can it?

Mangled corpse, disjointed and floating. Screaming engines burning up, disintegrating everything in their wake. The horrible, acrid scent of bodies burning.

A man, innocent, screaming.

Maybe it was never meant to belong to him. Tears, scared and overwhelmed, still sting his eyes anyway; wind-dried tracks would feel tacky against his cheeks, if he could feel them at all.

"What... was that?" he finally asks, voice small and watery. He's shaking, he realizes now.

But when he looks up, finally, still terrified and awed and feeling like he'll be sick despite the still-remaining nothingness in his gut, all Vash can see is the crumpled look on the other's face.

Everything loops back on itself. A child, scared or angry or not understanding, and someone else paying the price for it.

"I'm not--" a deep breath; shoulders shake and tremble. "I'm not going to tell on you." Even if he was, he wouldn't even know where to go, who to tell. He's just as scared of them as he is this waif of a boy in front of him.

"But you can't--." His voice cracks. Again, fresh tears fall hot down his cheeks. There are so many people here. And they shouldn't be. They should all be dead. The horror and the reality and the relief of it all feel white hot in his chest, in his nerves, as they all finally sink in. The nightmare back in the restaurant had sealed them there. He had watched them fall and burn from the heavens like shooting stars, humanity snuffed out instead of something to be wished on-- but here they all were. Not even a few feet away Vash can hear the quiet din, the voices of conversation and shoes against concrete and cars, something else he'd never once seen save for through a screen. Never mind his fear, still overwhelmingly present. They're here.

"You can't just-- just hurt someone only doing their job, just living." He'd seen the results already, a possible, horrible mirror the two of them should never have stumbled upon.

" People don't-- like-- me-- "

And I don't like them.

Once he felt the sensation of his heart all the way up to the back of his throat, lungs clamping and shriveled of air, Legato could allow his body to calm down. Like Vash, he was listening to the ambience of a city thrumming with life. A young husband grins ear to ear on the phone talking to his newly wed wife about a promotion at work. Two school girls argue at the bus stop. An elderly man hums, takes in the aroma of freshly brewed coffee on the cafe patio.

And a human boy seeks comfort from someone not human at all, yet he grasped the depth of mankind's emotions with such wholeness.

The song of humanity was disjointed and confusing, just like its namesake.

Finally, finally, Legato is able to take in a breathe that wasn't full of shakes like a failing car engine.

What was that? Vash had asked a question that went unanswered; amber eyes flicker back down to open, calloused hands. The tips of his fingers twitch and curl, small hooks prepared to reel in whatever they latched onto. They were not visible to the naked eye, but the boy could feel the thin wires twisting around his knuckles.

" I can make people do whatever I want with my secret magic, all I have to do is touch them with my threads, " Legato explains himself in that quiet, melodic voice of his, flexing his fingers one by one. He peers across the space between themselves, feet adjusting in the grass.

" You can feel them-- " he stretches his hand outward, just as he had done in the restaurant, but with a more conservative force. Tiny wires attached to Vash's arm, tugging at the muscles bit by bit. It would feel more akin to an involuntary twitch on the forearm.

" If I tug, your arm will come forward. If I twist, well. . . "

And just like that, the magic wears off as Legato releases Vash and tucks his hand against his chest, hidden beneath a tattered sleeve.