XII. fit for the blind

Xavier froze as heavy footsteps closed in.

Luckily, he remembered he still had Isla's gun, but it was too late. When he went to grab it, the intruder made his appearance from his peripheral view.

A man bigger, taller, and capable of beating him to a pulp.

Xavier scrambled to aim the gun, ignoring the ache from his deformed hand.

"Don't shoot that!" His voice was as rough as he looked.

"D-don't hurt me. Please, I don't want any trouble."

"It's me, Xavier. Isla. I'll explain, just. Put it down."

He let out a breath saturated with confusion. Did that man think he was blind or-or deaf? Anyone could see and hear the difference between a middle-aged man and a teenage girl.

"My name is Isla. I was inside Fujiwara Keiko's body. When her body was destroyed in that gunfire, my soul found this man's body." He—er, she? gestured to the man's body which was. . .herself?

Xavier lowered the weapon. "How. . . How is that possible?"

"I told you before that souls cannot die. We are souls," Isla reminded. "And that is a Soul Reaper. It captures souls so they cannot reenter a body. I won't let you fire it."

Isla approached him and he held his breath.

She retook the gun and, noticing his lingering fear, let out a sigh. "If I wanted to kill you, I'd have done it after you told me this location."

He replayed her words. If it were true, then he knew nothing about the world.

She squatted her now-muscular frame before the open safe, and grinned. "I'm glad I didn't kill you. How'd you get the password?"

Quickly, Xavier shifted his leg over the beanie and refused meekly. "I can't tell you."

"Hm? Well, I guess I don't need to know." Opening the door fully, she pulled out two textbooks, both thick and aged and signed personally by—"Redbeard LeRouge. . . The one who was different from his family."

"Do you know him. . .?"

"Not really." She played with the gun as she spoke. "While his family was attacking mine, he chose to conceal his soul in a Reaper. We call it erasing. He said that someone in this world made his life complete, so he had no desire to live forever, anymore."

Xavier glanced over at the board at the message he came across earlier: Being your father was the best thing about my life. I love you always, Black.

"The rest of them are deranged. What's happening outside is happening because of them," Isla seethed, her anger more evident now that it matched her appearance.

She grabbed one of the two manuscripts and went to sit atop a desk. Xavier took the other. He curved his lip halfway, as he was reminded of whenever Kelsey would bring him books.

He exhaled before opening it.

~

Don't let them see each other!

Xavier was three-quarters of the way when he came across that warning, written in large letters that spanned two pages.

Reading further, he learned the tragedy that happens when a clone sees its original—the former loses half of his life, and the original dies from a burst of their organs.

His mouth was slightly ajar. That's. . . a huge deal.

Or so he thought. His worries went away in no time. After all, such a risk was no risk for the boy who spent all of his life wearing blindfolds.

The solution to Redbeard's warning— to deprive oneself of sight— was one fit for the blind.

Nearing the end of the first book, Xavier found that cloning was made possible by one ingredient: the stem of a flower.

While he was looking at Redbeard's drawing of the plant, Isla approached him. "Here, I'm done with this one. . . Ah, that's a Dane."

He raised his chin at the one towering over him.

"They grow in a place called Danes Lobby," she cocked her head. "They're used for a lot of things, but. . . I didn't know they were used in creating clones."

"Danes Lobby. . ." Xavier repeated as he studied the drawing again. "Um. How can I get there?"

"Well, I did step one: found the Coordinates." Smirking, she waved the book around. "Two numbers that correspond to a latitude and longitude pair. Before he erased himself, Redbeard told me he hid them in his books."

"M-May I—."

"Why not? I owe you for opening the safe."

"Thank you, Isla." He bobbed his head, his eyes nearly watering because finally his dream of becoming like the birds was becoming possible.

Finally he would surface.

As he bathed in relief, Isla made a call. "Oi. Caius, put me on speaker. . . I have the Coordinates. You're welcome. . . Uhh, 23.416 North. 25.662 South. . . Where does that take us?" She waited a while for the response. "The Saha—?! . . .We'll need the quickest jet, then. Stealing one won't be a problem. The owners are probably too dead to care. . ."

If he were honest, Xavier wasn't yet used to the whole idea of immortal souls entering bodies. Isla looked at him from inside that muscular build and he flinched.

"Ever been to the Sahara Desert?"

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Nathan shut the door as he entered his house. "Nana, do we have ice? My eye is swollen."

"Nate, be quiet. She's sleeping."

He paused with a shoe halfway off, and looked at the direction of the couch through the one eye that worked. "The hell?"

Archer gave a crooked smile that faltered when he noticed. "Dude, what happened?"

"Tch." Nathan kicked his shoes off and went into the kitchen. From the freezer, he found a bag of frozen vegetables. Holding it over his eye, he plopped himself down beside his friend.

They watched the anime show, barely.

"Why're you here? Something happened at your mom's?"

Archer breathed hard. "She said my dad should rot in jail, we argued, I got angry, I came here."

"So, nothing new."

"It pisses me off. Can't she just be happy they're divorced?"

Nathan leaned back, shifting his makeshift ice pack over his lip.

It was Archer's turn to ask. "So? Who'd you fight this time?"

"Shitty Xavier's shitty dad."

". . . What."

"Keiko threw me at him so she could get Xavier back." Nathan sat up and looked at Archer. "That chick's not hanging with us anymore."

Meanwhile, Archer was racking his brain. "I forgot Keiko was also interested in Xavier. Did you find out why?"

"Nope. But. He told us where those books are that you two are so obsessed about." He continued as his friend's eyes widened, "Some building in the Wilds."

"You're joking, I—what kind of torture did she use?"

"None. That's why she's weird." Nathan pressed a little too hard on his swell and groaned.

Archer hopped onto his feet and began for the door.

"Don't tell me. . ."

"I'm going there. Like hell I'm letting this chance go."

"Dude, that place is far," called Nathan. "You're gonna walk?"

"If I have to."

Nathan groaned, set his frozen pack down, then went after Archer who was lacing his shoes. "Fine. Since you're so damn stubborn," he got his own sneakers.

Archer finished first. He looked downward. "You're really coming? Your eye looks bad."

Nathan straightened his torso and it made Archer stutter—the movement was unnatural and robotic. Then, his head made a move. As if he took an invisible punch to the face, it swayed back and remained so.

Amused, Archer scoffed. "What's that? Some anime move?"

Silence and stillness replied.

"Nate, if you're coming, let's go."

Nathan's head lowered, slowly, for a wide grin that revealed all the teeth it possibly could. His eyes were thinned and gleaming. When he spoke, he sounded nothing like himself.

"You're going to be my hundredth kill."

"What's with you?"

The air pulled taut with his cackle.

Before Archer could make sense of the unsettling feeling in his throat, his attention was shifted to the television. Their show ceased playing, suddenly replaced by a red screen on which a message was written.

EMERGENCY BROADCAST SYSTEM was its header. An automated male voice read, "This is not a drill. This is your emergency broadcast system reporting a worldwide, unexplained surge of violence in what is being called a Purging Game. Stay inside. Protect yourselves. May God be with you all."

The message was repeated, and the room illuminated with the haze of that red backdrop. Archer's breaths were heavy when he faced his childhood friend.

Nathan was stretching his arms. "I knew it was a good idea to take this body. It's tough even with these bruises."

"Hey, snap out of it, Nate. Nate!"

Archer's demands were futile, he quickly learned, as Nathan's next move was a swing of his fist.

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Neither of them trusted him.

As they flew to the Sahara Desert, Xavier had regressed to his younger self, seated on the bottom of the ocean, knees to his chest, a blindfold over his eyes.

What irony; he should've been used to it by now.

They were two hours into the flight and the arguing still hadn't stopped. Xavier was in the rear end of the jet's cabin, with the Yägers in the front, with their father piloting.

The boy pulled his knees closer when Isla's mother raised her voice. "If anything goes wrong because of him, it'll be your fault, Isla. You and your father, both."

Her brother, who he'd learned was named Tederich, added, "Yeah, what the hell were you thinking? You don't know that boy enough to bring him along. What if he's with the LeRouge?"

Isla groaned. "Like I said, he knows nothing about them. He just wants the Danes."

"Exactly. Do you have any idea what that plant is capable of? It's more than just a clone catalyst." Tederich exhaled sharply. "You know, the only reason we aren't Premier anymore is because you decided to fall in love with Sinclair LeRouge."

"Sin fooled all of us. Don't pin that on me alone."

A short while went on, full of heavy and irritated breaths. The pilot chimed in over an intercom, "I'll take responsibility if anything happens. So all of you shut up."

"He's only here because otherwise we'd have wasted time arguing about it. You're still a child, Isla," her mother said. "You have a lot to learn."

"Isn't this your five hundredth year?" mocked Tederich. "What a baby."

"Oh, shut. Up."

Back and forth they went. At the same time, Xavier heard a meow.

The sound was nearby. Right by his foot, actually. He knew it had to be Isla's brother, Caius, whose soul had apparently taken the body of a cat.

"Y-yes?"

Something dropped atop his foot. A wrapped up sandwich, he made out with his fingers.

"Thank you."

"Purr."

"And, um. I'm sorry. That I'm a burden t-to all of you. I promise I won't. . . do anything bad."

Xavier finished on a slur; the sandwich in his hand was nudged by a gentle paw. Caius left thereafter.

He parted his lips to eat, and tried his hardest to block out the arguing from the others.

~

A twelve hour flight meant heavy eyelids. Xavier was asleep when Isla's father announced, "T minus thirty minutes to the Sahara. Isla, now's the time to open the portal. It's on you."

"Yeah. I have Luka Altair on the phone riight. . . now. Hey, Luka. It's Isla. I need you to do your thing. . . Okay, I'll stand by."

"T minus twenty, now. Isla, we don't have much time. Is there something wrong?"

"I don't know, I. . . Luka, wha—? What do you mean it isn't working?"

"Isn't working—fucking hell," Tederich murmured.

"What's going on, Isla?"

"He. . . he told me he'll do it. He'll do it by any means. We have to trust him."

"We're there in five, Isla. Five. I don't see the portal."

"Isla."

"Isla, for crying out loud—."

She must've put the phone on speaker. In the same beat, everyone in that small plane quieted for the agony on the other end of the call.

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Luka Altair was plunging a knife into his thigh.

He had a balled up tee stuffed in his mouth to stifle himself. They weren't pretty, the sounds he made.

It was hard to tell that the seats of his vehicle were originally white. The seats, and everything in their vicinity.

If you bleed, I'll notice, Sinclair had told him.

With every bit of strength in him, Luka bit down on the cloth and twisted the knife. He threw his head back and cried a whimper. Despite the throbs and the salt in his vision, he held the knife in place.

He'd been at this for fifteen minutes now. First, it was his palm. When neither Sinclair nor Dimitri responded, he then sliced the knife across his arm. Now, his leg was gouged open. The pain traveled across his entire body.

Forehead veined, he shouted out loud. And he shouted inside.

Dimi! I know you haven't forgotten me! Aren't we fucking brothers?!

There were bodies littered around his neighborhood. He had seen the world go to hell from the television, before the news anchors became infected. If his end would come from blood loss, so be it.

For the boy whose green were mirrors,

It had never been more clear

That he was born to die for others.