Evolution: Chapter 19, Conclusion
Evolution
Chapter 19: More Human than Human (conclusion)
Description: This is a story of the Evolution of the character of Lightning throughout Final Fantasy XIII. The story will begin in the Vile Peaks and go through the rest of the game. There will be AU components to this tale. No Pairing (although you can read whatever you like into it.)
This chapter was too large for Live Journal to handle in one post. Here's the second half. This is the SAME chapter.
More Human than Human (Conclusion)
Lightning leads the way this time. She's unconcerned with her pressing need to take point. She doesn't care about the need to kill things. In fact, she's counting on that need right now. She wants to let her inner demon wreak some havoc. She's too much of a mess to be trusted with anyone's back anymore. She feels an urgency she can't describe churning away inside her, drawing her on. Part of her knows she's being pulled towards her stalker and focus. Part of her thinks she's being pulled towards Hope.
She's afraid that the truth is that she is being drawn towards both.
She can hear the footsteps of her friends, hears them whispering to each other. If she listens hard enough, she can hear their conversations too. She's noticed that her sense of smell is not alone in its acuity.
She doesn't want to know what they think right now. She's too close to falling into total chaotic madness to allow anyone else's worries to influence her.
Lightning's head is killing her. It feels like someone has taken a chisel and hammer to her brain and performed a very imprecise lobotomy that has left her functional but broken: like a windup toy that only marches backwards.
She scans the hallway for hidden pathways. If Hope is alive, he must have taken a different path. There is no way that he could have gotten past Lightning and Fang (please, let me be right about that!) down the main corridor and the boy wouldn't have been foolish enough to try and fight or pass a Tyrant on his own.
Lightning feels her breath skip and she chokes before she pulls herself together. She needs to stay rational and avoid the pitfalls of her nervous emotions. She needs to continue to operate on the assumption that Hope is alive and unharmed. Anything else is impossible to fathom. She can't have lost both of them.
Of course you could.
She shuts down the voice, wishes she could shut off her higher brain functions. She's been trying to follow logical thought progressions but she keeps getting bogged down in her desperation and misery. She has been actively avoiding thinking about Snow because every time she does, she finds herself shutting down. Remembering his face that last day on the Archylte Steppe when she'd asked him to back off and give her a break. That wounded look.
That is the last conversation she'll ever have with him. She'd told him to back off and give her a break and he had. And now he's gone and she'll never be able to fix anything. Not with him. Not with Serah. Her whole family is gone and she'd spent their last days pushing them away and making them think they were a burden to her!
She ends up on her knees with no idea how she got there. She wonders if it's possible to die from grief and decides that it must be. She wonders if she's about to transform into a Cie'th. She is unraveling at an alarming rate now. She feels like she's been flayed without the benefit of the merciful relief of unconsciousness or death. She feels like her heart has been cored like an apple and she's hemorrhaging all over the cavern floor.
"Come on, Soldier," Sazh whispers. "Hope's still out there."
"You don't believe that," she barks out before her brain can engage. She slaps her hand over her mouth, too late to keep the traitorous words from spilling out. She feels the blood drain from her face accompanied by the strange dizziness that always goes hand in hand with rapid paling. She closes her eyes, presses her fingers into them. "I mean..."
"Come on," Sazh repeats and he puts his hands under her arms and hoists. She opens her eyes on the way up and they catch on something in the shadows. She tenses in anticipation of attack, stares at the spot willing it to move; to give her something to kill. But there's no movement, only a variance in the shadows along the wall. She tilts her head at it to try and figure out what she's seeing; wonders if her eyes are playing tricks on her. She pulls away from Sazh in a daze, moves like she's in a dream toward the deepening shadows until her brain finally, finally, finally makes the decision that she is, indeed, seeing a cavern.
"Hey!" She exclaims, feels the first hints of real hope creep back into her. "I think I found something here!" She hits her knees again, this time before the small opening in the cavern wall. She traces along the mouth of the opening, discovers it's only a few feet high and even narrower than it is low. It's probably not a throughway to anywhere. She feels her heart sink a bit.
Sazh squats behind her. "Definitely big enough for the kid to slip through," he mumbles. He raises his voice and calls out, "Hey, Hope! You in there?" The sound echoes through the small cave and Lightning can't decide if that means the cavern is shallow or deep. She knows this answer, but her brain isn't working right. Her mind feels like a motor with stripped gears-completely unable to catch and do anything productive.
She spends a moment spinning her wheels before she decides it doesn't matter. "I'm going in."
"Hey!" Fang snaps from behind her. "Wanna let the torch go first, maybe?" Lightning looks at Fang, then at the light in her hand, glances back into the gaping maw and considers. Should she let Fang take point? Relegate herself to a secondary position?
"No. Follow my lead," she grunts, sees the aggravation explode through Fang like dynamite and shrugs. She'll get over it. Or not. Whatever. Lightning crawls on hands and knees into the darkness.
"Aw, screw it!" Fang mumbles behind her and the meager light from the torch extinguishes and casts them all into a perfect darkness.
Lightning closes her eyes. She finds that if she doesn't try to look, then the loss of her sight is less daunting. She waves her right hand in front of her to check for obstructions before moving forward. The progress is slow but steady. The tiny cavern seems to be an open artery in this miserable cavern. She wants to hurry to the other side but doesn't dare rush. She doesn't want to brain herself on a stone wall. Or startle some sleeping monster and get her throat torn out.
Or whatever.
She continues onward and concentrates on the scratch of stone against her knees and palms, the sound of her companions breathing behind her, the damp chill of the air against her overheated skin. She counts out steps as she goes, tries to estimate the distance and time. She carefully avoids thoughts of Hope. Or Snow.
She feels her skin prickle, her brand tingle. She realizes that she's made a terrible miscalculation. She rocks back on her heels and gropes above her to see if there's room to stand. Her hands hit the ceiling before her arms extend and she gives up gaining her feet and decides to make a break for it. She reaches for the person behind her, finds a hand.
"Move!" She says and yanks hard on Sazh's wrist. She startles him and knocks him off balance for a moment. She grabs him by the back of his coat and hoists, feels the fabric tear. She twists around and falls forward onto her hands and knees and crawls with a speed that any toddler would envy. "We have to move," she pants.
"What...the hell...is going...on...Soldier?"
"Just move it!"
"Care to share with the rest of the class, you crazy bitch?" Fang snaps from somewhere behind her.
"Less talk, more moving!" She snaps. Her knees burn and bruise where they connect with stone floor. Her hands feel raw, like she's dragging them across a cheese grater. She figures she's leaving smears of blood in her wake but she's too frantic to care. They need to get out of this death trap of a cavern before their pursuers decide to pounce.
"Ow!" Vanille yells. Lightning grits her teeth.
"Keep moving!" She orders. She knows it's cruel to disregard Vanille's injury. But she figures it would be crueler to let the girl nurse a small bump, bruise or break only to get torn apart and eaten by some predator.
"But..." Vanille eeps out.
"KEEP MOVING!" She shouts and no one speaks again. Lightning keeps her eyes ahead despite the fact that they are useless. She knows that she'll lose her throat before she sees her attacker.
Something pulls her up short and her weapon is in her hand before she's aware she's pulled it. She stops moving and pushes off her hands to a semi-upright position. The top of Sazh's head hits her square in her lower back, sends both of them face first onto the floor. She twists around onto her side, feels Sazh's hair brush her bare stomach.
She feels the air stir above her head, hears the whistle of something slicing the air at high speeds. She doesn't even grunt just fires her weapon into the air in front of her. The muzzle flare blinds her as surely as the noonday sun, but she gets a glimpse of the attacking animal as it takes three shots to the skull.
Blood and brains rain down upon her. Her ears clog, ring and buzz. She's dizzy and nauseated, figures there's a good chance that she's blown out an eardrum with that little trick. Shooting in close, closed areas is detrimental to the health, can cause damaged ears or even ricochets. Of course neither are as detrimental as, say, evisceration, so she figures she's made the correct choice.
She holsters her weapon and tries not to think about being drenched in bits of animal again. She can feel blood cooling on her arms, sticking in the light hair on her forearms. There's a chunk of something on her cheek below her eye. There's bits of things caught in the crease of her lips. She wipes at them with her left hand, feels the meat and jagged bits of bone smear with the blood. She spits once, ends up with blood in her mouth and is far less disgusted than she should be.
She refuses to think about it.
Sazh pushes himself onto his hands and knees, grunting and cursing the whole way. She follows suit and sits with her back to the wall. She needs to wait out the worst effects of the adrenaline crash. Her body is trembling and twitching. Her head is killing her. She stretches her legs out, bumps into the animal carcass and recoils from it. She braces her back against the wall and uses her feet to press the huge, heavy animal carcass away from her.
"Everyone okay?"
"Holy...Mother! What the hell was that?" Sazh says. Lightning wants to laugh. Feels hysteria bubbling up and she stamps on it. Figures that if they live through this they can all have a real good chuckle.
Later.
When her body stops shaking enough to move, she shimmies onto her knees. "Let's get moving. There are more of them around."
She presses past the cooling, bleeding corpse and continues onward. Her elbows won't lock properly and her arms feel like overcooked spaghetti. She's afraid she's going to topple back onto her face. She clenches her teeth, grits her jaw and picks up the pace. If they don't make it out of this cavern in the next few minutes, they aren't going to get out at all. That's not pessimism, it's just plain fact.
"Hey get the lead out up there!" Fang yells from behind her a few minutes later. Lightning puts as much speed on as she can but knows it won't matter. There's no way that they can move as quickly on four limbs as their four legged pursuers.
Lightning makes a decision. She rolls off her knees, presses her back to the cavern wall, pulls her weapon and yells, "EVERYONE DOWN NOW!" She prays that her friends understand her intentions. She really doesn't want to have bitty pieces of them all over her too. She squeezes the trigger, feels the Edged Carbine explode to life in her hands and gets a strobe effect view of the cavern that makes her dizzy. Yellow eyes glint in the flashing light. She gets a view of jagged teeth before the bullets tear the animal's face off and it falls in a heap within arm's reach of Fang's foot.
Lightning stops shooting, feels the effects of a second adrenaline dump in under ten minutes ravaging her body. She'd throw up if her stomach wasn't so empty.
The next gunshot shocks her heart like a defibrillator: stops it and starts it with one painful jolt. She feels hot liquid splash across her back and shoulders. Something thuds behind her and she twists to get a look at it before she realizes she can't see anything in all this darkness. Spots dance before her eyes, and her ears are so stuffed it feels like someone poured wax into them. And plugged them with cotton. Her head pounds in time with her racing heart.
All in all, she feels like crap.
"Alright! Got that son of a bitch." Sazh crows.
"Nice shot!" Fang praises. "I knew were my favorite Sazh."
"One day you're going to shock me by actually telling the truth." Sazh throws back.
"Don't bet on it," Vanille whispers and snorts. Lightning is still trying to get a handle on herself when she realizes that all of her companions are chortling away in the dark, surrounded by three carcasses and who knows how many other living enemies.
"I think we've all lost our damn minds," Lightning grunts, setting off another fit of inappropriate giggles. She shakes her head, but feels a smile tugging at her lips despite herself.
The tiny artery opens into a main corridor a few minutes later and Lightning's pretty sure she's never been happier in her whole life to stand up straight. Her lower back is burning from the long crawl through the darkness. Her palms burn from the abrasions. Her knees complain and crack once in protest to the abuse she's heaped upon them. Her ears are still ringing and her head still hurts.
Then Fang lights the torch and the real fun starts.
They are all coated in blood like survivors of some bad horror movie. Actually, they all look like the axe murderer in some bad horror movie. She has spots and speckles of blood and brain dotting her hands, arms and clothing. There are chunks of things she doesn't want to think about clotting into her hair. She runs her fingers through her hair, feels her nails catch and snag and tear and just gives up any hope of grooming. She turns her palms up, sees the road rash that she's been feeling for the past half hour and winces. Her hands look even worse than they felt. She uses bloodied fingernails to pluck pebbles out of the open wounds on her palms, winces as she has to pick at one that's embedded too deep. Once she's cleaned most of that debris, she rubs her palms against her clothes.
Her knees are in pretty much the exact same state as her hands, but she doesn't care enough to worry about them. She can't afford to lose her hands' dexterity. She's not so worried about her knees.
"Everyone alright?" She grunts.
She looks up and finds Fang wrapping Vanille's wrist up in some bandage while Sazh fusses around her. Oh, yeah. Forgot about that.
She should feel guilty that she'd forgotten her friend's injury but she's too exhausted to really work up the proper amount of shame. She decides she'll work on that later and places that in the seven hundredth position on her 'to do' list.
"We have to get moving," she says already knowing the reaction she's going to get. Fang doesn't disappoint her. She stands and stalks over to Lightning and pokes her finger in her face.
"Look here, little Miss Soldier. We almost died back there, in case you didn't notice." Lightning feels her eyebrow go up as her patience dwindles. "Vanille is hurt," Fang pokes the finger into Lightning's chest, right into her brand and Lightning tenses. Feels every muscle in her body coil as her mind begs her...orders her to lash out.
She exhales and shoves past Fang, holds onto the last bits of her temper by the tips of her fingernails. She strolls over to Vanille, squats next to her and looks at her bandaged arm before glancing up to Vanille's eyes.
Vanille's terrified eyes.
"May I?" She asks, amazed that she's managed to keep her voice steady despite her all-consuming rage. She feels Fang hovering behind her, knows that the woman is poised to attack. Lightning ignores her and waits for Vanille to answer. Vanille nods and lifts her bandaged appendage. Such trust!
Lightning has a sudden urge to rip her arm off and beat Fang to death with it.
She shivers, shakes her head and takes hold of the wrist. Vanille hisses but it's more from fear than the contact. Lightning can feel the fracture in the wrist, knows from experience how badly that hurts. She closes her eyes and digs for a healing spell. She sends it into the injury with the practiced ease of a master.
It's really getting too easy for her.
Vanille sighs in relief and says, "Thank you!" Lightning smiles at her and stands, turns and faces Fang. Fang still looks antsy, but her anger is gone. Her cheeks are tinged with an embarrassed blush and she opens her mouth to say something. Lightning cuts her off.
"Can we go now?" She can't keep her bitter anger or sarcasm from her tone. And Fang must see something else in her eyes because the other woman's fingers tighten around the pole of her Bladed Lance. Lightning's eyes twitch toward the movement, then back up to Fang's eyes. She smiles at her. "You think now's the time?" Think you've got what it takes?
"Ladies..." Sazh starts. Lightning holds up a hand to silence him. She can hear the panic in his tone. He knows things might go south here and this won't be anything like the 'cat fights' he's seen before. This one is going to get ugly. And bloody.
Lightning keeps her eyes glued to Fang's. If Fang wants to throw down now, she's ready for her. Hell, she's more than ready.
She's aching for a good fight.
"We might be getting there," Fang says, voice cold as Lightning's ever heard. Looks like she's itching for a good fight too. Lightning feels the grin tugging at her lips.
She resists its siren call.
Lightning nods at her, sighs. "I think..." you missed your chance "we've got a little more time. Until I find Hope." Fang narrows her eyes suspiciously, body tensing further and Lightning tenses herself. Ready to throw down, if that's what it's going to come to.
"Alright then," Fang says and the warrior disappears, grieving friend rising up to take her place. And the desolate look in her eyes takes all the starch right out of Lightning, lets her feel the horror that has been absent over the past few minutes. Horror over just how easy it is to become a monster. And how fun it might be.
She turns away from Fang, figures someone's got to be the first one to let things normalize here. If she's unwilling to show Fang her back, how the hell is she going to trust the other woman to watch it? Fang whispers something to Vanille as she kneels beside her. Lightning takes a step and hears something. She whips around and looks at the others to see if they've heard it. They are pulling themselves up off the floor and fussing over Vanille. Lightning shakes her head, figures that maybe she's only heard her ears popping to unclog after all the abuse.
Until she hears it again.
/Get the hell out of here, Kid!/
Snow! It's impossible. Her mind is playing tricks on her. She's delusional.
None of those things stop her from running full tilt down the tunnel towards the voices without precaution or a backwards glance.
"Hey, where the hell are you going, Soldier?"
"Wait up you crazy bitch!"
"Lightning!"
She ignores all three of them and concentrates only on the pounding of her feet against rock and the rapid firing of air in and out of her lungs. She runs until her shins ache, until her feet feel as bruised as her knees. Her calves and thighs burn from exertion, and her lungs are struggling to get a full breath. She's working her exhausted body so hard that she's got even odds of passing out right now.
Except she won't. She won't allow it. In fact, she just pushes harder, reaches deeper into herself: past her training, past her anger right into her lizard brain where her most basic instincts exist. Those instincts that drive us to protect ourselves, or in this case, our families. Lightning isn't running to preserve her life. She's running for Snow's life. For Hope's life.
Both mean far more to her now.
She runs through the darkness until she spots light up ahead and then runs even harder. Her breath is gushing out of her faster than she can get it back in and she feels dizziness threatening to drag her into a swoon. She grits her teeth and growls, and pushes harder. Blood sings in her veins, thrums through her at record speeds. Hearing is muffled by her rapid breathing, by adrenaline, but she hears Snow's voice yelling "Don't look at the blood. Look at me!" and she feels her heart wrench as she rounds the last bend...
And spots the predator sneaking up on Snow. The scream that has been building in her for hours-days-years finally tears loose from her chest. It gouges her throat with its ferocious intensity and the animal startles, ears twitching and it turns from its prey to face the oncoming threat. She hurls herself at the animal with every ounce of natural and unnatural strength in her body.
The creature probably outweighs her by close to thirty times. It should be the equivalent of throwing a stone at an Ushumgal Subjugator. Logically, she knows that hitting the animal will be like hitting a wall. Except...
Lightning isn't sure if it's the force of her speed, her will, the creature's shock or some combination of the three, but she somehow takes the animal clean off its feet. She clutches fingers-fists-into the animal's pelt and feels flesh and fur tear as her momentum carries her over and past the downed animal and into the darkness beyond.
She hits the ground hard, skids over the rough stone. She loses half of her wind on impact, but none of her rage. She lets the momentum of her movement propel her legs over her head in a backwards summer salt, lands on her knees and whips her blade from its holster in time to see the animal shrug and shiver back to its feet and fix hateful yellow eyes on her.
She bears her teeth, feels her jaw snap at the force of her snarl. The animal growls back at her and she's up and charging it before she's made a conscious choice, before the animal has chosen its course, and she gets a good solid swipe at it for her initiative. The animal yelps then roars at her and charges, she lets it come, ready to take it apart one piece at a time when she hears
"Down, Soldier!"
and she hits the ground rolling as shots ring out. The animal is still alive when it hits her, claws gouging and scoring her as she wrestles the bleeding beast. She still has her weapon (she didn't get to be Guardian Corp for her looks, after all) and she switches to the gun, and puts the barrel under the animal's chin and squeezes until the body stops moving and slumps down as dead weight on top of her.
She spends a moment pinned before she realizes that she can't breathe. She struggles and bucks, feels faint as unconsciousness stalks her.
Hands under her armpits and a calm voice whispering, "I got you, Soldier. Easy," have her relaxing and a mighty tug has her free and gasping for beloved oxygen.
"You're a mess!" Sazh is whispering next to her and she pushes his hands away to stop the healing spell.
"Help me up," she chokes and he does it against his better judgment.
She looks over to where Snow kneels, Vanille and Fang hovering around him. Both are speaking but Lightning can't understand what's going on. She takes a step and stumbles. Sazh grabs her before she hits the ground. Now that the rage has abated and the danger is neutralized, Lightning can feel just how much damage she's taken.
She's going to be really sore for a long time.
"You're really bleeding here Soldier," Sazh says as he wraps something around her arm and pulls. She is aware that she feels...wrong.
Then again, maybe she won't be sore too long after all.
She shrugs away from Sazh and limps towards her friends. She glances around, looking for Hope, can't figure out where the boy is and why he hasn't hurled himself at her as is his custom. Lightning gets a look peek over Snow's shoulder, spies platinum hair and she feels like she can breathe again. Feels a relief she'd never thought possible.
Sees the blood all over Hope.
She gasps and lunges, is beside Snow before her brain catches on. He's covered to his elbows in blood. His hands are pressed to Hope's belly. The boy is paler than she's ever seen, eyes closed, dark lashes a stark contrast to the incredible white of his skin.
He looks dead.
Lightning's mind blanks and she goes numb. She wants to touch Hope. She's terrified of touching Hope. Terrified of finding out that she's arrived too late and he's gone. The world filters back in a barrage.
"You need to let go of him Snow," Vanille is saying, tone steady. Her 'healer' voice. Snow shakes his head and doesn't move. "I need to see how bad it is."
"Just fix him! Do something." Snow orders, hands still pressed hard into Hope's belly. Lightning watches the blood seep between Snow's fingers and looks at Vanille for some direction.
"I need him to let go!" Vanille says out loud. Lightning decides she must be speaking to her. She puts her hands over Snow's and pries at his fingers, tries to muster some strength but it's all gone. She feels panic choke her and she changes tactics.
"Let go, Snow!" She orders. He ignores her and she feels more panic bubble up. "Come on. It'll be alright but you have to let go." She tugs on his wrist. She might as well be pulling on a stone column. She abandons the effort and grabs his chin and forces him to look at her. His eyes are flat, no spark of recognition. No hint of Snow in them at all.
"Let go," she says and looks at his hands still stubbornly holding on. Looks back at Vanille who's getting more frustrated, more panicked. She looks back in his eyes, tries to keep her calm. "You need to let go of Hope." Her voice cracks and takes her patience with it. "NOW, Snow. Now or he's going to die!"
Snow finally lets go of Hope. His blood soaked hands cover his face. His shoulders stoop and his whole body shakes. Vanille takes over, hands replacing Snow's and Lightning can smell the healing magic dance through the air. She watches as the blood stops flowing, as the wound seals up. She bites her lip until she tastes blood. Until she realizes that Snow is babbling into his hands.
She pries the fingers off Snow's face one by one. "Snow? Snow look at me," she whispers. His eyes are sealed, tears spilling through clenched lids and blazing trails through the blood mask on his face.
"So sorry. So sorry. Sorry. I'm sorry. Sorry, Sis. I let you down. Let you die, let him die. I killed him, oh my god," he folds his arms across his belly and doubles over, keening. Lightning stares at him, terrified. He believes they're all dead. That he's failed them all, failed Hope. Her heart breaks for him. She knows this pain. She'd lived it only hours before when she'd believed him dead. Except this is Snow, and Snow can't fall apart. He's their spirit and their cheerleader. He can't break!
"Snow?" She puts her hand on his shoulder and he only yowls louder. She takes her hand away. "Snow stop it! Stop it! Look at me. Please?" She has no idea what she's going to do. Hope is dying, and Snow is crazy. They're both alive but she can't help either of them.
"He alright then?" Fang asks from beside her, startles her from her thoughts. Lightning looks up at her and shakes her head, looks back at Snow and shakes in her own impotence. "Alright, then. Slide on over. Go help Vanille." Lightning doesn't even think about it, just does as Fang says.
She puts her back to the wall next to Hope, runs her fingers through his hair and takes his hand. There's some color in his cheeks now and his breathing is even. Vanille looks up at her, pale and clammy and just nods. Lightning puts her arms around Hope and holds on. She wants to help him lie down, pillow his head on her leg, but she waits. Too afraid that he'll shatter if she touches him.
Fang waits a moment until she's received confirmation of Hope's survival from Vanille and then squats down next to Snow. "Oi! Hero," she says. She keeps her tone calm with a hint of a query in it. Snow responds to her in the way he'd refused to respond to Lightning. He looks up at Fang with wild eyes and Lightning is relieved the other woman managed to reach him. She refuses to acknowledge her irrational irritation.
Fang offers Snow a small smile before hauling off and belting him across the face hard enough to send him sprawling. "SNAP OUT OF IT!" she shouts.
Lightning shifts forward and grasps Fang's wrist before she can hit Snow again. "Are you insane?" She asks, too astonished to be angry. She releases Fang's hand and watches Snow flail around on the ground a bit before he presses himself up onto hands and knees. He touches the livid handprint on his cheek.
"Ow!" he snaps. "What the hell was that for?"
Fang looks at Lightning and shrugs. "See? Worked like a charm." She squats in front of Snow and says, "Glad to have you back Hero! Things haven't been the same without you. A few more hours, I might've even missed ya!" Fang is gone before Snow can come up with a retort.
Lightning presses a kiss to Hope's forehead and crawls over to Snow, kneels in front of him. He looks dazed instead of crazed and she says, "You with us again?" Snow takes a bit longer to answer than she'd like, but less time than she'd been expecting.
"Sis?" She smiles at him.
"About time, Blondie."
"But I thought you were..." he trails off.
"Dead?" she finishes and shivers once. "Yeah. Join the club."
"We're getting T-shirts and everything," Fang chimes in from the shadows and Lightning can't help but snort. All hostility towards Fang has disappeared. It's so foreign right now she can't even imagine how she'd felt it. Snow turns toward the voice and Fang continues with, "Seriously. We are!"
"Would you stop lying?" Sazh whispers and Lightning feels the tension disappear like a physical oppression. Before she can take another breath she's smashed against Snow, nose mashed painfully into his collarbone.
"I thought I killed you, Sis."
Huh? She feels slower than usual and has no idea what he's talking about at all. "Well, I always knew you were a dumb blonde." It comes out garbled and incomprehensible. Snow's chuckle rumbles against the bridge of her nose. She can hear the hysteria that permeates everything, knows that Snow is teetering right on the edge.
She's pretty sure she's sailed right off that edge and is freefalling right now.
She struggles a bit to untangle herself from Snow. All her adrenaline is gone, and the panic that had been fueling her in the aftermath is on 'E.' Her whole body hurts and she can now feel the blood that's steadily flowing from open wounds. Exhaustion and pain tag team her and she doesn't even realize the danger until her peripheral vision disappears
And then she's gone.
Chapter 20 part 1