Daughter Of Madness [Kid X Fem!Chrona]

Seeds of Mistrust

What remained of Chernobyl's city hall was a peeling maze of stubborn walls. Blackened plants determined to grow through the cracks waved with their deformed leaves. Chrona sat in a large weathered chair. The small area in the world she'd been allotted was suddenly wide open, but she couldn't help shy away from it. The phantom feeling of being constricted hadn't left her, even if Ragnarok had.

"I don't think you should have removed me from the list like that." She said, Still uncertain he had that power at all. Shinigami-sama may be anchored to the school, but his legions of followers didn't leave when they did. "I've hurt everyone I was ever close to, and killed the rest. I'm not a good person."

"The fact you think that is proof you are a good person." Kid said. "Bad people don't realize when they've done something wrong, or only regret it when they've been caught. Right now, you're the only one punishing yourself."

"Someone has to. There's no one else that'd mourn Ragnarok." She bit her lip. "I thought I'd finally figured out how to make us both happy. It was probably impossible, but I had hoped..." Maybe that was what she was regretting most. Towards the end Ragnarok was more of a shadow of himself than the child he grew up with. The potential that things could get better, that was what was gone now. Ragnarok had died when she lost her memory. "I don't want you to die either." Kid implored. "That's why we have to stay here. If father found you-"

"Father?" Chrona raised an eyebrow. "Who is your father?"

"My 'father'," He grimaced, "is Lord Death."

"...what are you doing here?" Chrona shook her head and got out of her chair. "This is what I'm talking about. You siding with me isn't going to remove me from the list, it's going to put you on it. Look what happened to the Kishen."

"I know." Kid said. "I spent too much time worrying about if that would happen." He walked up behind her. She flinched when he wrapped his arms around her shoulders. "I lost you once already; I'm not going to lose you again." The weight on her back was comforting.

"Y-you knew me?" She trembled in his arms. "You knew me, and you never told me?"

"The others tried to get you to remember, but had no luck. " Kid said. Chrona stilled, but said nothing. The ninja, and that other girl too; they both said they knew her. "Making sure you were safe was my priority, I figured the rest would follow after." She was quiet for a while, at first he thought she'd try and run. Her eyes were closed and she tried to picture it, chasing that feeling of warm familiarity. But there was a wall there, like her mind didn't want to remember, even if in her heart she did.

"What were we to each other?" She asked. His forehead dropped to the back of her head. What were they? Classmates? Friends? Both were accurate, but they didn't capture how important those quiet moments were. That Kid was the second person she was willing to be vulnerable around, that he had trusted her with keeping treasonous secrets and she had.

"Partners, I guess." He said. "We never had a chance to talk about it, really. What I do know is you're unbelievably important to me, and I regret not risking myself to protect you sooner." The starless night mocked them. Evidence that the world would not let them pull away from humanity unchallenged. " If my father found you..." He faltered. "I'll never let that happen."

"And when he does?" Chrona angled up to see Kid's face.

"I'll kill him."

-8-0-8-

Morale during the debriefing was low. Several seasoned meisters were severely injured. His students had been trained to hunt witches and kishen eggs, not the playthings of gods. Now instead of one rogue deity reeking havoc, now there were two.