𝔽𝕝𝕠𝕨𝕖𝕣 ℂ𝕣𝕠𝕨𝕟 || 𝕂𝕒𝕞𝕚𝕤𝕒𝕥𝕠 𝔸𝕪𝕒𝕥𝕠

35. I May Be Crazy, Don't Mind Me

The first thing Kanari saw when she woke up was the worn grey hues of the stone walls, staring back at her pitifully. She blinked a few times, momentarily confused, before everything came rushing back into her head.

The pain came first. A throbbing feeling made itself present at the back of her skull, filling her ears with a terrible ringing. She then tried to process her surroundings, which was harder than it ought to have been thanks to the persistent headache. She dimly realized- both literally and figuratively, for there was barely any light -that she was in some sort of small room. The walls were all stone bricks layered atop one another, the cracks patched messily by cement.

She was sat curled up on a piece of oblong padding that could barely be constituted as a mattress, her knees tight against her chest. The makeshift bed was elevated by metal rods, rust and blemishes covering their once-shiny surface. There was a pillow propped up behind her, its shape lumpy and hard. A grimy toilet sat in a corner, smelling unusually well despite its appearance suggesting otherwise.

Steel in the shape of a door was set in the wall, a barred rectangular window letting in rays of warm, flickering light; the kind that could only be created by flames.

She was in a cell of sorts, that much was clear.

But why?

Then, the events leading up to this moment came rushing back to her. The failed attack. The treasure hoarders. The rest of the patrol.

She whipped around frantically, but there was no one but her in that minuscular room. Morbid thoughts of what might have happened to them swarmed her mind, fueling her headache. This was her fault. She should've been quieter, or fought harder, or did something, anything, to escape this fate she'd doomed them to.

Instead, she failed. As she always did.

Would this never change? She'd been so confident. Ayato would hate her now. After insisting she would succeed, how could she face him again? In retrospect, it was ridiculous to hope so much. Failure was her old friend, and they seemed to love visiting her.

She would never change, would she?

Every single thing she did, could she ever do it right? Did anything she ever achieved matter, in the face of all her failures?

If she hadn't so confidently rushed in, then maybe these innocent people wouldn't be stuck here.

If they were still alive, that is.

A loud click summoned Kanari from her thoughts, and her concentration was dragged to the door as it swung open. She squinted, her eyes adjusting to the sudden burst of light. A silhouette of a tall man appeared in the doorway briefly, before slipping back into shadow as the door closed behind him.

"Finally awake?" He quipped, a smirk dancing on his face.

Was it a smirk? It was certainly some sort of smug grin, but it was tainted with malice and cruel mocking rather than the affectionate teasing Kanari had grown used to. The mere thought of Ayato and the tender smiles he had once given her made her heart throb. In that moment, she would've traded her pathetic life for one more smile from him.

"You've been out for the longest, but I guess you did hit your head," the strange man before her continued.

In the dim light, Kanari could make out his messy ginger hair and blue eyes, but not much else. His clothes blended into the walls, murky hues swirling around in the space that should've been his body.

"What? Cat got your tongue?" He jested, chuckling.

Kanari found that she did not have the strength inside her to respond, so she took to staring at her feet. Hopefully, her captor wouldn't notice her shaking hands as they wrapped around her knees.