esp_dragon: (Plotbunnies)
[personal profile] esp_dragon
Fandom: Noblesse
Summary: Nakida’s a hacker in the middle of a job to find some information. Except they’re not the only one breaking into the building that night - there’s a silver-haired guy walking around like cameras don’t exist. If he wants to get caught, it’s not their problem.
Huian’s on guard duty to protect the information they’re after. Usually it’s quiet - all she has to do is enter the system, keep an eye on the camera feeds and patrol around the clusters of data to make sure no-one gets to them.
Their pasts connect them, even if they don’t remember. And the past does tend to come back.
Rating: PG-13
Notes: Reincarnation fic! :D Written for nano! So expect some weirdness as I churn this out, haha.
Ahahahaha, yeah, I had to quit there. XD; This chapter/part isn't something I can bash out like I did with the previous parts.
Genre: General.
Word count: 1,532
Total word count: 33,220
Status: Work in progress



Huian frowned, her eyes fluttering open. Her head was throbbing, but it didn't feel like a hangover - there was a pressure in her head but nothing else. She didn't feel thirsty, and felt full, in fact. She'd spent a lot of time dreaming, she knew that. Dreams filled with fantastic fights with her in the centre of it, wielding spinning guns or a massive rifle.

She could hear a radio and - and there was someone else in her... this wasn't her room. She pushed herself up and glanced around - it looked like a basic inn room with only a few furnishings.

"We're not going to hurt you," the other woman said, looking up from her console screens. There was something about her that Huian couldn't place that seemed familiar. They hadn't met before though, Huian knew that much. There was something wrong with that statement, but she ignored it, focusing on what the other woman had said.

"We." There were more people involved. But she wasn't in the lab anymore, right? Any place was better than the lab.

"Yeah, we."

Huian heard a toilet being flushed and when the occupant of the bathroom left-

"21!" She brightened at the sight of him, relaxing. She wasn't caught in an act by the Union.

...The Union?

And '21 had paused at the doorway, his expression saying he didn't know where to look.

"Ah, shit," she said, looking away, blood heating her cheeks. "Sorry, I thought - you reminded me of someone." She had never met. "My head's pretty messed up." It was an understatement, but for the moment she felt like herself. How long that was going to last, she didn't know.

"Hm." The man (and '21' was still on the tip of her tongue, no matter what she thought) pulled up the only chair in the room and set it between her bed and the other woman's. Sitting down on it, he said, "Do you remember what happened?"

"I'm not too sure," she admitted, pulling herself up more so she could sit better. Her brain was filled with fog, making it hard to think. Everything hadn't felt real, like she'd just dreamed it. But here she was, in what seemed to be an inn in plain white clothes she didn't own. She rubbed the crook of her elbow, but there wasn't any pain or bruising there, nothing to say she'd had a needle in her a few hours ago. If it was a few hours ago. The sunlight streaming in from the window said it had to be at least morning.

Huian's imagination wasn't good enough to conjure up whole entire lives of complete strangers though, not in the detail she was remembering them in.

Maybe it wasn't the memories of those people hadn't gone, but they'd settled down. Into her.

Was she still the person she was a couple of hours ago before? If she had all these new memories, did that still make her the same person?

She still felt like herself, but could she say that objectively? Maybe she'd changed and thought she was the same.

And all this was giving her a headache.

Huian groaned, leaning forward to rub the heels of her hands into her forehead. "I remember some stuff." Or she remembered all of it in perfect clarity. She didn't want to poke it too hard. "You won't believe me." And there was something about that statement that was also off, and she wasn't sure why.

There was a snort in front of her and Huian lifted her head to look at the other woman.

"You can give us a try - we'll probably believe you."

"No, you won't." How could they believe that she had something in her that ate people? Tore them to pieces, carved out the soul while the body was still living?

And she'd poked too hard at the memories, her brain buzzing again, filling her skull. Shit shitshit! She gasped, her brain feeling like it was pulsing to get out, throbbing at the back of her eyes. Why had she done that -?

There was a pressure on her shoulder and she grabbed it like a lifeline, letting the contact ground her.

It helped as she focused on the physical feeling rather than her brain and the world sharped to her legs curled up under her.

Wait.

"Don't touch-!" She tried to jerk back, but '21's hand was tight on her shoulder and she hadn't let go of him yet. He was going to get eaten like the others and it would be her fault! She could feel the tendrils curl around '21's fingers, wrap them up and -
And -

That was it.

Panting, her eyes wide, Huian stared at the purple and black tendrils pulsing around his hand. Not doing anything.

Comrade.

"What?" she croaked. She couldn't have heard that right. It was probably an echo from another person's memory.

Comrade, Dark Spear said again, exuding contentment, almost purring. We wouldn't hurt our comrade. It's been a long time.

Dark Spear had missed him...?

Huian stared up at '21 - and shit, that wasn't his name - or was it? If Dark Spear knew him. …His nickname was a number?

He gazed down at her and then frowned at Dark Spear. "What's it saying?" He knew it too. He wasn't surprised and terrified like she thought he would be.

And the other woman wasn't yelling anything either or trying to press herself up against the wall, though she was staring at Dark Spear too, rubbing an arm.

"Comrade," she said, and her throat closed up, because Dark Spear had tried to take control of her mouth, tried to talk through her.

'21 tightened his hand on the tendrils, breaking its hold on them, and Huian felt its disappointment when he let go.

"How…" Huian said, struggling to get the words out, working to have control over her body again. "How does it know you? And why isn't it trying to eat you?"

"Complicated," '21 muttered. "And I'm not sure."

"'Eat'," the other woman echoed. "That would have eaten you?"

'21 winced. "Dark Spear could have eaten me if it didn't like me; it's got a habit of-" His gaze flicked to Huian.

"Of what?" Huian said, not liking the way he was looking at her. Guilty. Trying to hide something. "It's in me; I should know if it's going to try and do something else." It would be one less surprise and maybe she could be prepared for it when it happened.

"Has Dark Spear tried to make deals with you?" He sat down on his chair again, watching her.

"Oh." That. "Yeah," she said, nodding. "It was trying to get my soul when we were escaping." She paused, taking a breath. "Said it would get more power if I did and we could escape."

He looked her over and it was obvious what her response had been to those deals.

But now that she was focusing on '21, there was a different kind of buzzing in her mind, tugging at her attention. Huian turned her head to face the other woman, who was studying her in the same manner.

"...What is it?" '21 asked.

"What is that?" the other woman said, staring at her.

Huian's skin was prickling, almost...like it was resonating.

She could see '21 looking between them from the corner of her eyes.

"I think...we can feel where each other is."

The other woman closed her windows and slipped off the bed, taking slow deliberate steps away. Huian didn't turn her head to look, but she knew where she was without listening or trying, like they had sonar or were connected somehow.

She swallowed, biting her lip. She had enough people in her head already; she didn't want another one, one that had her own body.

Huian closed her eyes and nodded. "Yeah, I know where she is." Her only consolation was she only knew where the other woman was and didn't seem to be connected with her brain; she couldn't feel any other emotions or thoughts that could be from her.

"Ah, 'they'," the other - oh, person corrected. "But yeah, it's the same for me."

"Sorry," Huian said, opening her eyes again.

"It's fine," they said, walking back around to their bed. "And I'm Nakida," they said with a small bow.

"Huian," she said, looking at '21, not sure what he would say. Would it be the name she'd been using for him?

He looked uneasy, glancing between them. If he knew about Dark Spear, what did this connection between them mean?

"M-21," he said, looking at her. ...That was his name? That wasn't exactly a normal one... "But Kang-dae's fine."

"Kang-dae," she repeated, trying to tell that to her not-memories. It didn't seem to work; the name she associated with him was '21.

"So," Nakida said, sitting back on their bed, "do you know why we can feel each other?" They waved between the two of them.

"I think so," '2 - Kang-dae draw out, his lips pursed. His gaze dropped for a second and then lifted again, looking between them.

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