Whispers in the Mist [Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc V/Mistborn AU]

 Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc V [Mistborn Setting]
Pairing: None
Characters: Reiji Akaba, Ray Akaba
Rating: T
Word count: 8616
TW: Blood, Gore, Eye Horror, Body Horror, Major Character Death

I will never actually write the rest of this au but I have been thinking about this absolutely terribly angsty prologue bit to the main au and i had to purge it from my system

Reiji reached as high as he could, but his fingers barely brushed the bottom of the book he was reaching for.  He pressed his lips together with irritation as he shifted back down onto his heels. Would he really need to go all the way to the other side of the library to get the ladder to get a book simply two inches away from his hand?

He tried again, stretching as high as he could go. If he could just...nudge it...

A hand reached over his head, wrapping around the book and sliding it from the shelf.

“Looking for this?” 

Ray’s teasing voice only irritated him more, as did her bopping him lightly on the head with the book. He snatched it from her, shooting her a withering look. What he would do to be as tall as she was...a few more years, perhaps, and he might catch up with her, at least.

“Oooh, you’ve got that down,” Ray said with a laugh.  “You’ll be scaring off all of papa’s business partners in no time — then I won’t have to do any work!”

Reiji sighed.  He tried to tamp down his annoyance. Ray lived for teasing him and it was no good to let her get away with it.  Still, the annoyance flared once again, and he had the sudden urge to snap at her — 

“Stop that,” he said, shooting her another, more measured look. It took all he had to force himself not to glower, as his sudden flare of annoyance demanded he do so.

“Awww,” Ray said.  “Just thought you might like the catharsis of shouting a bit.”

She stuck her tongue out at him, but his annoyance faded. He sighed again.

“It really isn’t proper of you to Riot me like that,” he said. “You’re supposed to Soothe anger, not enflame it.”

“But that’s boring,” Ray quipped. She winked at him, then tilted her head to look at his book. “What are you reading, anyway? Did papa give you more busywork?”

“It’s nothing,” Reiji said, tucking the book title side in towards his chest.  The fewer people knew he was researching medical anatomy — the fewer who realized that he was using that research to compare nobles and skaa anatomy, to challenge the Lord Ruler’s teachings that the two were biologically different — the better.

Suddenly, however, he wondered what the point of hiding it from Ray was. Ray wasn’t likely to tell anyone else, of course, and she was only curious. It might even make her more suspicious if he didn’t show her — 

“Stop that!” Reiji said, as he wrenched his emotions back from Ray’s Soothing touch.

“You told me to Soothe,” Ray pointed out, and Reiji glowered at her.

She only grinned back, but he no longer felt manipulated, so perhaps she really had finally left off. Honestly. His sister was like a child, sometimes. 

“Flaunting your Mistborn status isn’t a wise move,” he said, walking past her to one of the tables so he could add his book to the three others he’d selected. “If another House discovers that you’re Mistborn, it could cause complications.”

“Oh, you’re the only one I bother with it,” Ray said mischievously.  “Or, rather, you’re the only one who notices. I’m very good, you know. But you know me too well.”

“Rather, I know myself too well,” Reiji said. “And I know what I would not do without coercion.”

He tucked the books into the little bag he’d brought with him to bring up to his room. He was storing the most useful texts under a floorboard beneath his bed for easy access, and he’d like to read where no one else was likely to walk in and ask questions — well, no one except his bother of a sister.

“Leaving already?” Ray said.

Reiji glanced over his shoulder warily.

“Why?” he said.

Ray smiled widely.

*

Reiji was truly beginning to think that his sister might be a bit off her rocker.

He glanced uncomfortably around the garden, brown and dying and covered in ash, as the night sky grew dark. No ash fell tonight, but the sky remained as dark and cloudy as ever.  And the mists pulled tight around them, cold and damp as it curled around his limbs.  

Just a bit ahead of him, Ray stood in the mists, only barely visible.  She had her arms out wide, her head thrown back with her hair falling long down her back.  Her eyes were closed, as though she were inviting the mist to her.  They stood there in silence, with nothing but the mist, not even a breeze to rustle the brown, spindly trees and break the silence.  All Reiji could hear was his own heartbeat in his ears.

“Do you hear it, Reiji?” Ray said. Somehow, despite the relative silence, her voice didn’t sound very loud. It was almost as though the mist itself were speaking, soft and near to him, though she were a few feet ahead.

“I do not,” he said, almost automatically.

This ritual seemed to happen every time they went into the mists.  Ray had admitted to him one night that she could hear the mists. That it spoke, in voices too quiet for her to understand the words, but enough to understand the feeling.  That was, of course, preposterous.

But then again, she was Mistborn. And the Houses didn’t like to let on to which among their ranks had been blessed with such power, so it was impossible to compare Ray to any other Mistborn, and learn if perhaps “hearing the mist” was some extra, supernatural sense that Mistborn had in addition to their access to Allomancy.

“You’ll hear it someday,” Ray said, letting her arms drop to her sides.  “The mist likes you.”

“I’m sure it does,” Reiji said, more to humor his older sister than anything. He, for his part, did not particularly like the mists. They were strange, and alien.  The way they moved and wavered with no breeze made them...well, made them almost seem alive. Something he had no idea how to break down to study. Sometimes, when he stood out here in the mists with his sister, he felt as though maybe she were right, and they could speak.

But that was only a superstitious anxiety, brought on by the very natural human fear of being outside, at night, surrounded by fog, with low visibility to see any approaching predators, he reminded himself.

Ray stepped forward, the strips of gray fabric sewn into her cloak rustling and waving about her as she did.  She held her hand out.

“Ready?”

Reiji bit his lip.  But he didn’t hesitated. He reached for her hand, and let her pull him into a hug.  Then she dropped a coin from her pouch, and Pushed.

He tried not to cling to her too tightly as they rocketed into the air, the mists trailing in their wake.  In response to something Reiji could not see, Ray’s body jerked off to the side, and they were sailing over the gates of the Akaba mansion.

Ray landed lightly on the roof and took off at a dash, cradling Reiji in her arms.  He tried not to think about how embarrassing it was to still let her hold him like this, when he was already thirteen years old, and instead, tried to focus on everything else.  He focused on the mists, on the way they swirled and didn’t seem to move in ways they should from the breeze Ray created with her movements.  He focused on the way Ray moved, the way her body jerked when she Pulled from the ground again as though yanked by some invisible cord, and then how she moved when she Pushed, as though something beneath her had just shoved her upwards.  Her legs didn’t crack under the weight of her landing when she dropped from heights that would snap the legs of a normal person, and her arms holding him felt somehow thicker than they normally work, denser, as she was ostensibly burning pewter to strengthen herself.

But how did that make sense? Reiji considered as Ray continued to Push and Pull herself across the city. How did swallowing metal, and then ‘burning’ it cause one’s body to strengthen? He still couldn’t figure out how that might make any anatomical sense.

Finally, Ray began to slow, coming to a stop on a particularly tall building.  She gasped for breath, shaking slightly as she stood, staring out into the mists.  After a beat, Reiji tapped her shoulder, and she seemed to remember that she was holding him. She let him down, and he carefully tested the roof for safe footing before letting go of her.

“There,” she said, pointing up.  “You can get a bit of a glimpse of them from here sometimes.”

Reiji looked up. At the end of her finger, if he squinted, and if the mist shifted back just a little bit...

There it was.  A star.

It was too dark for his notebook to be of any use, so he only stared at it, at the pair of them, actually — no, there were three.  He could see at least three.  He memorized their shape and size and the distance between them as best he could.

“Can you point to me on a map where we are now when we get back?” Reiji asked, filing away the stars for later recording.

“Sure,” Ray said.  “But let’s take a minute first, okay?”

She flopped down, letting her legs sprawl out in front of her and leaning back on her hands.  After a moment, Reiji gave in.  He slid to sit down next to her, hugging his knees to his chest as he stared up at the stars overhead, when he could get a glimpse of them between the mist and the clouds of soot and smoke that hung over the city.

For a long time, neither of them spoke. The mists curled about them, quiet and soothing, as they simply sat and drank in the silence.

“What will you do with this information about the stars?” Ray asked. “I’ve never asked you.”

Reiji hesitated.  He waited to see if he might feel unnaturally predisposed to tell her everything, if she might be Soothing or Rioting him.  But no unnatural emotions arose.  It was a real question. She wasn’t teasing him.

He looked down, at the mist, at the eerie shapes of the dark buildings rising out of it like dark shadowy monsters.

“You cannot tell anyone this,” he said.  “Not even father.”

“I won’t.”

The soft way she said it was enough for him to know. She was serious. She wouldn’t tell.  

He sucked in a soft breath.

“There are only a few mentions of stars in any history book,” he said. “Mostly in ones so old, and so well hidden, that it’s clear they haven’t been looked at in decades, much less reproduced.”

He lifted one hand, framing the three stars in the crook of his thumb, as though he might be able to cup them.

“Supposedly, there was a time when the stars were visible,” he said. “So visible that people could use them to navigate.”

Ray didn’t answer, didn’t look towards him, but he could sense her attention on him almost like a weight on his shoulders.

“There are other things, as well. Mentions of plants being...green. Decorative elements in old books of things I’ve never seen before, and have trouble finding other mentions of.”

He let his hand fall back to his knees, still staring at the stars.

“All things that are difficult to confirm, things that seem almost dangerous to ask about.”

He looked down, finally, at his knees, and then at his hands. He’d never spoken aloud before, his suspicions.

“I think the Lord Ruler is lying to us,” he said. “But I don’t know about what, specifically. Or about how much. Or why.”

He curled his hands into fists.

“But something’s wrong. I can sense it. I won’t rest until there are things I can confirm with my own hands, with my own observations. I want to know the truth. I want to understand what Allomancy is, and why it only appears in noble bloodlines. I want to know why it works and where it comes from. I want to know what really happened when the Lord Ruler claims to have defeated the Deepness.”

He sighed, grinding his fists into his eyes, pushing his glasses up into his bangs.

“It’s all so far away,” he said.  “I can’t even begin to grasp it. Studying your Allomancy is only so much help. If I were a Mistborn, or even a Misting, I might be able to...”

He trailed off.  Suddenly, he worried he’d said too much. Had Ray used emotional Allomancy on him after all, to convince him into talking?  And what would she do now that she knew the truth behind his studies, behind his avoidance?

For a long moment, Ray said nothing.  When he chanced a glance at her, she was still staring up. But...somehow, he didn’t think she was staring at the stars. He wasn’t sure what she was looking at.

A faint smile graced her lips then, a softer expression than he was used to seeing on his sister’s face. It was introspective, very unlike her usual mischief or unbridled determination.  She turned her eyes to him.  Then she smiled a little wider, and reached out to ruffle his hair.  He glowered at her, shooing her hand away and fixing his bangs.

“You’re still so young,” she said, the teasing edge back to her voice. “You don’t have to have all the answers yet.”

“I’m not that young,” he muttered.

But it didn’t feel like their normal banter, somehow. It was suddenly as though some thickness had come between them, some haze unlike the soft touch of the mist. As though something were hanging over them.

How long had they been doing this, Reiji wondered.  When was the first time that Ray had offered to take him out into the mists, into the night, to let him feel what the flight of an Allomancer felt like for himself?  How young had he been, when he’d first told her of his desire to see stars, and she’d brought him out into the darkness to find them? How often had they found themselves here, on some roof in the middle of nowhere, chasing Reiji’s wisps? He wondered what his sister had imagined he’d been doing before now.  And why she’d brought him along so willingly, when it was so obvious that she preferred to run through the mists alone.

“All right,” he said, suddenly annoyed by the silence. “I’ve answered your question. Your turn.”

“Oh? What are you curious about?” Ray said with a mischievous smile. 

Reiji rolled his eyes ever so slightly, huffing.

“I told you my treasonous thoughts, so you can answer a simple question for me,” he said. “Where do you go? When you don’t bring me with you.”

Ray’s eyes slid to his.  For a moment, their gazes held. His sister wasn’t smiling — she was more...considering him. As though deciding what to say. What to tell him. What to trust him with. The same balance of pros and cons he’d weighed before telling her the truth.

Her lips parted.

“I go to meet someone,” she said.

Reiji’s breath caught. He’d expected a silly answer — that she simply went charging about, using her Allomancy for fun and mischief and for the thrill of the challenge, like the reasons she did everything else.

“Who?” he said.

She took in a breath. It was obvious that she was going to tell him — tell him something important. Something perhaps, just as dangerous as what Reiji had admitted. But what could that be? Who could she possibly be meeting that would warrant the same level of caution as admitting to treason and heresy? Surely, she must only be meeting some lover, someone she wasn’t supposed to see — a skaa, perhaps? Or was this bigger than that?

Ray’s breath caught.  Her shoulders stiffened ever so slightly. He noticed her tilt her head faintly, almost imperceptibly. If he didn’t know her like he did, he wouldn’t noticed. Did she hear something? If she were burning tin, she could hear much further than he could.

She stood, quickly.

“We need to go.”

Reiji wanted to argue. He wanted to hear what she was going to tell him. But the tone in her voice brokered no argument.  He stood as well, taking her hand to let her help him to his feet. She reached for her belt, retrieving a vial — water and metal flakes, the fuel for her allomancy. She opened the stopper with her teeth and spat it out, downing liquid inside in one go.  Then she pulled Reiji towards her, and reached for her coin pouch.

The mists swirled.  Ray tensed, swinging around as the first Inquisitor landed on the roof behind them.

Reiji stiffened. He had seen Inquisitors before, of course, but from a distance.  Never this close — and never framed in the darkness and mist, never so clearly seeing them for the twisted monsters they were. In the low light, from only dim, mist-dampened streetlamps, Reiji could only barely make out the metal studs that made the Inquisitor’s eyes — the ends of the metal stakes that were pounded through their eyes and poked out through the backs of their heads. Something that Reiji knew logically ought to kill a person.

But this Inquisitor was very much alive, and a cruel smile twisted his face as he straightened.

“Lady Ray Akaba,” he said, his voice dampened by the mists. “You are hereby marked for execution, by order of the Lord Ruler. You will submit.”

Ray tensed, wrapping an arm tighter around Reiji.

“What is the meaning of this,” she hissed, her voice low and enraged.

Reiji felt Ray tense before he heard the steps of the second Inquisitor landing behind them. She didn’t turn, but he could feel her body straightening, felt her twitch slightly.

“The game is up, Lady Ray,” the first Inquisitor said. “Your father has already been executed for his crimes. Now, only you remain.”

A fire roared in Reiji’s brain all at once. His father...dead? Executed? For what purpose?

“Surrender peacefully,” the Inquisitor continued. “Release the Akaba heir and come quietly, by the name of the Lord Ruler.”

The heir? He wasn’t the heir. And why — why were his father and Ray — but not him?

“You know exactly what this is about, Lady Ray,” the second Inquisitor said, drawing closer, boxing them in. “Your father committed the most heinous of crimes. He produced a child outside the bloodline.”

Air caught in Reiji’s throat like a rock.

Ray...

His father....

Oh, by the Lord Ruler, Reiji swore, as it all began to make sense. His father had done the one thing the Lord Ruler would never forgive. He had...with a skaa woman...and that meant Ray was...his sister was...

Oh Preservation, he thought, cold seeping through him. They were going to murder his sister for being half skaa.

Ray’s eyes flickered back and forth. He felt her arm tighten around him. Reiji tried to think, his brain screaming. Ray could get them out of here. She could escape. What then? They couldn’t stay in the city. They would have to flee. As far as they could. The caves. There was said to be a skaa rebellion hiding there. The Lord Ruler wouldn’t waste his resources going after them that far, would he?

And then his stomach dropped out as Ray Pushed.

He threw his arms around her as Ray shot into the air.  The Inquisitors weren’t far behind, rocketing up behind her.  Ray’s body jerked to the side as she Pulled on a nearby metal roof.  She landed on her feet, gathered Reiji into her arms tighter, and rocketed off again.

Coins shot through the mist, scattering at high speeds, barely missing them.  Ray hit the next roof and ran.

Reiji bounced around in her grip as she Pulled herself like a shot off to the next building. Her grip was still strong on him, but without her hands — it would be hard for her to fight back.

“R-Ray,” he gasped.  “Sister!”

“Shut up, we’re running,” Ray said.

“Put me down,” he said. “Put me down!”

He tried to push at her, but she tightened her grip.

“I don’t care — I don’t care if you hate me,” she said. “I don’t care if you hate me for lying, I’m not leaving you! I’m not letting them — I won’t let them —”

“Ray, listen to me!” he said. “I don’t — this isn’t the time! I don’t hate you! But they said they wouldn’t kill me!”

“They were lying!” Ray said. “I’m not leaving you!”

“You have to! They’re after you! They won’t bother with me! Put me down and I’ll hide, and you can move faster!”

“Shut up, for once in your life, Reiji, shut UP!”

Her voice cracked, and for the first time in his life, Reiji heard something in Ray’s voice he’d never thought he’d ever hear.

Panic.

Ray tightened her grip on him, and that was when he felt the tears scatter his face.  She was...crying?

Ah, he suddenly thought. That’s right.

Father’s dead.

He couldn’t find it in him to cry, not now, not yet. Only a hollow emptiness, an uncertainty of feeling, was left within him — hyperfocused on the layer above it, the thoughts that wound towards escape and survival.

More coins shot over them in a cloud, and this time, one hit. Ray yelled as one cut through her shoulder, grazing her.  She grit her teeth, and then they were plummeting.

Ray hit the ground — too hard. She lost her footing. In midair, she twisted, landing back first rather than land on top of Reiji. Reiji collapsed on top of her, momentarily winded. Ray, however, did not pause. She rolled up, scooping Reiji.  She froze, though, as three Inquisitors materialized from the mists, closing in around them from the surrounded alleys.  Ray edged backwards, eyes fixed on each one. Her eyes flicked up, and the two that had followed them parted the mist as they landed before them.

Ray released Reiji, pushing him behind her, backing them up against the nearest wall.

“Do not move,” she said, pushing him back against the wall.

“But —”

Ray’s hand clutched against his shoulder so hard that he thought she might break it with her pewter-enhanced strength.

“Do not move.”

For a moment, the Inquisitors only filed out around them, forming a half circle, blocking them in. Reiji felt like he might throw up. Two Inquisitors had been terrifying enough but...five? 

“Ray, you can’t beat them,” Reiji hissed. “We have to run.  You have to run.”

Ray released his shoulder, not even looking at him, eyes fixed on her opponents.

And then coins filled the air in a deadly stream of ricocheting metal.

Ray didn’t even raise her hands. Reiji flinched — then every coin froze in midair.  The ground beneath Ray’s feet cracked, and she sunk an inch into it, as though she had suddenly dug into it, her stance wide as she braced herself.  The entire cloud of clouds vibrated, the battle of invisible Pushes as both Ray and Inquisitors tried to push them back at the other.  Reiji could only stare, his mouth hanging open. Ray was — she was matching the Pushes of five Inquisitors at once.

Ray’s coin pouch exploded, and coins shot at deadly speeds, rocketing past the coins she battled over with the Inquisitors. Three found their mark, sinking into Inquisitor’s skin and then — punching out the back. Blood spurted from the tiny wounds as one of the Inquisitors yelled, dropping backwards.  He lost his grip on his coins, and then those coins, too, rocketed back at their owners.  Two more Inquisitors took hits, and then one charged.

Ray met him with her arms crossed over her head, catching his fist between her arms.  She yelled, twisting her hands over his wrist, twisting into him, and flipping him hard over her shoulder, slamming him into the ground.

Coins went ricocheting around the square in a flurry of directions, and Reiji had to drop to his knees, hands over him as three coins broke the brick over his head.

Ray slammed her boot into the Inquisitor’s face as he hit the ground, and then whipped about.  She Pulled on the fallen coins, yanking them back towards her.  Two ripped straight through an Inquisitor, but he didn’t even flinch. A nasty metal spike appeared in his hand, and he flung it towards her, shoving it with a powerful Push. Ray dodged around it, twisting around and Pulling the spike back as it finished its movement, yanking it into her hand and moving forward at once. The stake raised, as though to stab him in the head.  But then the stake was yanked from her fingers, pulled into the hand of another Inquisitor, who immediately Pushed it back to stab her through the heart.

Ray Pushed off of something near the ground, her body rocketing off at an angle.  She flipped and hit the nearest building feet first, standing sideways for a moment before shooting off again. She pulled a flurry of coins back to her palms then sent them out in a rain of deadly metal again.

Reiji could hardly believe his eyes. His sister was...she was holding her own. Against fiv Inquisitors.  They couldn’t seem to keep up with her, her body moving so quick that Reiji could barely keep track of her movements. She’d never moved like this while he’d gone out with her — but without him in her arms, she moved as though she were the mists themselves. And in fact, a strange, faint shimmer seemed to surrounded her — a wisp of mist that curled around her, somehow...deflecting small coins, sending them off in a different direction. It was as though the mists were stronger around her, thicker.  Something was different, something was beyond anything he’d ever seen her do before. Was he imagining it, or did her eyes suddenly have a strange, pale glow to them?

She twisted easily in midair, finding metal in what seemed like a thousand perfect places to angle herself into Push after Pull after Push, crashing feet first into Inquisitors, flinging their rain of coins and spikes back.  She...she might actually do it, he thought with awe. She might actually be powerful enough to defeat a Steel Inquisitor.

The one she’d flung to the ground stirred, finally rolling over and pushing himself onto his elbows.  He reached out a hand for a fallen spike, Pulling it towards him.  Reiji’s heart leaped into his throat as he watched him aim the spike at Ray, watched him calculate when to Push, when she might land for just a second long enough to — 

Reiji didn’t think. He leaped forward.  

He landed heavily on the Inquisitor’s back, startling him enough to knock him back onto his elbows, the spike clattering from his hands.  Reiji scrabbled bare handed at the man’s back, looking for something, anything, anything that might give him a chance to survive the next few moments. He clawed at the back of the man’s neck, raking deep bloody gashes into him.  He grabbed at the ends of the spikes that poked through the back of the man’s head and tried to pull on them, and the man roared with anger.  He Pushed himself up, and Reiji dropped to the ground with a heavy thwump. He wasn’t very fast — even less so than an Inquisitor burning pewter.  In seconds, the man had him by the scruff of his neck.  In one second more, an arm was wrapped around his throat, suspending him a foot off the ground as he kicked and struggled.

And then the spike was back in the Inquisitor’s hand, and the tip was pressed into his cheek, and he froze, hanging limp, hands still digging into the arm that held him.

Don’t make a sound, he thought desperately. Don’t let Ray know that you’re held captive. If she hesitated even for a moment — 

“Cease your resistance immediately, Ray Akaba,” the Inquisitor shouted.  “You will immediately hand yourself over.”

Ray’s eyes glinted through the dark — and it was too late. Her gaze caught on Reiji. Her eyes widened.  She landed hard on her feet, whipping around towards him, hands reaching out — 

It was the only second distraction the Inquisitors needed.

Four spikes Pushed through Ray’s chest from four directions and ripped straight out the other side of her, tearing a rain of blood in their wake.

Her eyes bulged. Blood welled up against her mistcloak as for a moment, just a moment, she stood, frozen, almost in shock.  Reiji felt the entire world stop.

Then, silently, face still frozen in shock, Ray keeled forward. She landed with a thwump on the ground, face first. Even in the dark, Reiji could see the pool of blood spreading beneath her.

He couldn’t scream. He couldn’t...he couldn’t make a sound. He could only stare.

She was...

Dead.

His sister was dead.

A shuddering breath rippled through his sister’s body.  It was like the world came back into motion again, and Reiji felt bile rise up in his throat.  Slowly, painfully, Ray dragged one arm forward. Her nails dug into the cobbled stone. Her body scraped against the ground as she tried — she tried to drag herself forward.

“Stop,” Reiji whispered, the only sound he could make. “Please...stop...”

Ray gagged, making a horrible bubbling sound. Reiji threw up, the vomit dripping over his lips and splattering the ground, but the Inquisitor still didn’t let him go, arm tightening around his throat.

“It seems we’ll have to dispose of you after all,” the Inquisitor said, shaking Reiji slightly. “The Lord Ruler will not think kindly of one who tried to defend an abomination. A new Great House will rise to take your place.”

Reiji struggled, kicking, wanting to scream but having no air. His eyes blurred with tears of pain, tears of panic. And his sister, laying on the ground in a pool of her own blood, still dug her fingers into the earth. Still tried to drag herself forward, inch by inch, towards Reiji.

“S-stop,” he gasped, tears rolling down his cheeks. He couldn’t see. His glasses were crooked, almost falling off. “R-Ray. Sister. Please — don’t — it’s — it’s enough —”

He gagged as the arm around his neck grew tighter, kicking his legs more out of instinct than any attempt to escape.  Ray shuddered, a rattling breath accompanying another spit up of blood. She dug her fingers into the stone and dragged herself forward again. She was...mumbling. She was mumbling something. He could only just barely hear — 

“Please, let me save him, let me save him, let me save him, one last thing from you please let me save him —”

Another spike shot from the Inquisitor’s hand, burying itself into Ray’s body, staking her to the ground. She shrieked, body spasming.  Reiji threw up in his mouth again, spitting it onto the floor.

Do something, he thought.  I have to...I have to...what can I...

Ray shuddered on the ground, face in the dirt. But she still kept trying to move forward. And he only hung there, helplessly. If it weren’t for him — for his stupid, childish desires — if Ray had been alone tonight — 

Ray let out a low, moaning keen.  Her fingers stretched out, almost as though beseeching.

“Please,” she begged, to no one Reiji could see or perceive.  “Please. Save him, at least him.”

She lifted her arms inches off the ground, a huge effort, fingers grasping at nothing, begging to something that could not hear, that did not exist.

Except...

The mists

answered.

It was quiet at first, unobtrusive. Reiji almost didn’t notice it. The mists thickened, as though a wave were washing in from somewhere new, filling in the small square with a thick whiteness that sapped away all visibility.  One of the Inquisitors frowned, tilting his head, as though hearing something Reiji could not.

And then the mists simply swallowed him.

Reiji couldn’t think of another way to explain it. It was as though he had been suddenly sucked into them, dragged up into the thick white cloud that came over him with the softness cracking sound.  The other Inquisitors reacted to the tiny sound much more intensely than Reiji did, as though they could hear it more clearly. One of them whipped around towards the mists that had swallowed the first Inquisitor, a spike Pulled to his hand.

The mists latched onto his hand. At first it only visibly looked as though it had gotten thicker, a small cloud around his hand. Quickly, however, Reiji realized it had caught him. The Inquisitor swore, digging his heels in and trying to yank his hand free —

His arm came free. But the hand was gone.

Blood sprayed from the now open wound, and the Inquisitor shrieked. The others were truly reacting now. Reiji’s captor released him, and Reiji crumpled to the ground.

The mists swirled now, faster and faster, like a whirlwind — a natural phenomenon he’d only read whispers of, and never seen for himself.  It was as though they were enclosing this small space, blocking them in. 

Mist stabbed through the third Inquisitor like a physical thing, wisping away as soon as the jagged holes were left to bleed in his body.  The one who had lost a hand tried to swipe at the mist, but it was only air and water — at least, it was then. Like some invisible jaw, it suddenly cleaved through the man, slicing him into pieces.  Blood splattered Reiji’s face as the body fell to the ground, spikes clattering out of the man’s body and onto the ground.

He didn’t see what happened to the last Inquisitors, but as the mist rolled over them, swallowing them from sight, he heard the screaming.  Reiji’s heart leaped into his throat. The mist was getting closer. It was starting to creep towards him — and Ray.

Reiji crawled forward, still shaking from the lack of air.  He tried to reach Ray before the mist did — and then what?  What would he do? Could he do anything with the damage that had been done to his sister? Could he escape trying to hold his sister’s heavy body?

He grasped her hand.

“Ray,” he gasped.  “Ray, we have to...we have to go.  Please, we have to go.”

It took all of his meager strength just to drag her up, to roll her over and into his arms.  The mist crawled closer, and still, the screams and squelches weren’t done. They had to get away. They had to run. Whatever this was — 

A soft, warm hand touched his face, wiping away the trail of tears down his cheek.  Ray smiled distantly up at him.

“It’s all right,” she whispered. “It won’t hurt you.”

The mist drew ever closer, as Ray’s strength failed her and her arm flopped back down to her side.

“Ray, keep your eyes open,” Reiji said, trying and failing to keep his voice steady. “Ray!”

Ray wasn’t seeing him anymore. Her eyes were turning glassy.

“I’m sorry,” she said.  “I’m sorry. I know I promised. I didn’t mean to lose here.”

“Ray, listen to me. Stay awake. Stay awake!”

The screaming had stopped, now. There was only the aching, painful silence.

“I’m so sorry,” Ray said. “I don’t want to ask him to...but he’s — Reiji’s smarter than me. He can do it. I know he can.”

She smiled, as though at something Reiji couldn’t see. She was talking nonsense. She was dying.  He fought through his tears, gathering her into his arms, like she’d done for him.

“Ray, please,” he gasped, tears dripping down onto her face. “Please.”

“I’m sorry,” Ray whispered again. “Please...please...take care of him...please protect him...”

Her eyes fluttered.  Her neck grew limp as her eyes grew dark.  Something seemed to exhale from her, a faint wisp, that in Reiji’s shattered psyche, might have looked to be a soul.

And then the mists were on them.

They were so thick.  He couldn’t see Ray’s face, even though he could feel her body still in his arms.  He could feel the mist like a living thing, a soft touch that wrapped around his body, held him in place as though it were solid. 

He had the sudden, terrifying sense that something was staring right at him.

He gripped Ray tighter, unable to move, barely able to breathe. Ray had said it wouldn’t hurt him — but he’d watched the mists tear the Inquisitors to shreds. Why had it done that? How had it done that? And why would it show discretion? Ray had spoken nonsense in her shattered, dying state.  He felt the mists tighten around him, felt his body lock up as though a giant hand held him, and for a numbing moment, he was positive he was about to die.

Then he felt something in his mouth — a thick, cold liquid, almost like drinking half-solid ice.  He inhaled in spite of himself, and the cold feeling shot down his throat, his nose, and he choked on it.

The mists. He was swallowing the mists. 

The mists forced themselves into his eyes, his ears, his pores.  He might have screamed if it wasn’t for the mist that choked his lungs, that filled him up to the constraints of his ribs.  He couldn’t see anymore as the mists poured into his eyes.  It was freezing — and yet also warm.  It was seeping into him, floating beneath his skin.  He didn’t know where he ended and the mists began, as though he were wisping away, eaten up until he, too, became a living mist.

He cried out silently at the pressure that inhaled him, that seemed to press in on him from all sides and from within him all at once. The only thing he was sure of was the weight of his sister’s body in his hands.

It was that that pulled him back — that forced him to drag himself, kicking and screaming, back to the surface of the mist.

When he opened his eyes again, the mists had receded. Only an ordinary thin haze hung over the square.  There was no sign of the Inquisitors’ bodies — though the remains of the coins and spikes, and splatters of blood, were left in their wake.

Reiji’s head buzzed. His mouth was dry, and his eyes were drier. He had to blink several times to get his vision back to normal. He felt a faint echo of cold tingling beneath his skin.

Had he...had he imagined all of that? Had it all been a hallucination, from the stress of his sister’s murder?

He looked down. His sister still hung limply in his arms. Ray was still dead.  His hands began to shake.

And then he noticed something very curious.

A store of energy seemed to be arising inside of him.  Uncertainly, he reached out with his mind, and touched against it.

A warmth spread through his stomach as blue lines arose in his vision, leading to the metal scattered on the ground.  He sucked in a half breath, eyes widening.

Tentatively, he reached out with one hand, still holding Ray with the other.  He Pulled.

A coin shot into his hand, so fast that it almost nicked him before he caught it.  He held the coin, staring at it.  Then, just as tentatively, he tried Pushing. 

The coin shot off into the night and struck against a wall — immediately, Reiji’s body lurched back, nearly making him lose control of Ray. He released his Push before he dropped her, scrabbled to hold her.

His heart thrummed in his chest.

It had been no hallucination.

Somehow....

Ray had made him a Mistborn.

Reiji looked down at what remained of his sister. Her eyes stared sightlessly up at the sky, at the stars that they could no longer see.  Had it really only been hours before that they had been in the library? That he had been annoyed with her teasing, and resentful of her bantering?  Tears pricked at his eyes again, as guilt threatened to overwhelm him.

You have to go.

The whisper was so faint that he barely heard it — but in the silence, it was loud enough to startle him. He whipped his head around, looking for some sign of the speaker.  But there was no one in sight.

You must go. 

More Inquisitors are coming.

Do not waste her sacrifice.

We will hide you for as long as we can.

The voices chorused, soft and echoey, right against his ears. He felt the cold trail of the mist against his neck, and a cold sweat rose to his skin.

It...

It was the mists.

The mists were speaking to him.

His throat was dry.  His heart thrummed with panic. More Inquisitors? Could he escape? He couldn’t do what Ray could do — even if he were now a Mistborn, he was untrained. He could not defend himself.

Go.

We will hide you.

The Inquisitors did not know you would be with her.

They are dead.

The others will not know you were here.

Go.

The whispers faded, and Reiji had a sudden feeling that he would not hear them again.

They were right, he realized through the haze of his panic, his grief, his shock. They wouldn’t have known that he would be with their prey. They’d begun the fight claiming that they would let Reiji live — because he was pureblood.  He recoiled from the very idea all of a sudden, feeling as though he were full of poison.

But..but if he left now...if the Inquisitors didn’t find him with Ray’s body...he could feign ignorance. He could survive.

But...but he couldn’t leave her.

He gripped his sister a little tighter. There was nothing more than a shell here, now.  An echo.  His eyes filled with tears again.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.  “I —”

He swallowed.  The panic suddenly subsided, the overwhelming guilt and grief receded.

In its place was a pit of unrelenting rage.

The Lord Ruler was the cause of this.

Reiji lifted his eyes towards Kredik Shaw, the distant spire of the Lord Ruler’s palace.  A sudden resolve overtook him. If he had survived this night — if he had inherited, somehow, Ray’s power — there must be a reason.

He would make that reason killing the Lord Ruler.

He laid Ray gently on the ground. He brushed her bangs from her eyes, and, although he knew it would imply that someone had been here, he closed her eyes.  He lingered for only a breath longer.

“I will make sure you rest in peace,” he whispered. “No matter what it takes.”

Then, shaky and uncertain, he launched himself off the nearest coin and into the air.

*

Reiji leaned over a book when the library doors flung open.  A servant, red-faced and panicked, appeared in the door.

“My Lord Reiji,” she gasped, hand to her heart.  “At the door — an Inquisitor —”

Reiji held his composure.  He carefully tucked a bookmark into his book, and closed it, standing without rush. He straightened the edges of his suit — a fresh one, without blood or ash.

“And what is his business here?”

The servant gulped down a few breaths.

“Begging your pardon, milord, but he’s — he’s saying the Lord Leo Akaba and the Lady Ray Akaba — they’ve been — executed, milord. They — they want to speak with you, to tell’s you the reasoning, to —”

“Ah,” Reiji said, a forced calm in his voice — somewhere deep inside him, he was shocked at his own apathy.  And yet, beneath it all, the core of rage still burned. “Yes, of course. I’m already aware, of course.”

The servant blinked, lips parting.

“Is that right, Lord Reiji?”

In the door, the Inquisitor appeared.  The servant looked as though she might pass out from the shock of his appearance and the fright of his being so close.  She scurried inside to put distance between them, backing off into a corner as she wrung her hands.

The Inquisitor had no eyes, so it was difficult to tell if he was looking at Reiji.  A tremor of panic rose up inside him, faced so soon with the specter of the creatures that had murdered his sister.  Blood stained his inner vision, and bile rose in his throat.

He forced himself to remain calm. A block of ice.

“I suppose you’re here to speak about my father’s dalliance with a skaa woman,” he said, as calm though reading from a dictionary. “And my sister’s half-blood.”

The servant’s eyes bulged.  His father had done extraordinarily well, hiding Ray for this long. Clearly, there hadn’t even been a whisper of his affair.

“So you were aware,” the Inquisitor said. “Interesting.”

Reiji kept his eyes steady.

“I recently discovered in one of my father’s records,” he said, waving a dismissive hand.  “Though, I must admit, it pains me to hear that it took the Ministry this long to discover my father’s indiscretion.”

The lies tasted like ash in Reiji’s mouth. He wanted to throw up. He wanted to run into his room and sob. His youth suddenly felt so prominent, now. He was only thirteen.

He was only thirteen, and he’d just watched his sister die. And now he had to lie about being glad about it.

“We received an anonymous tip,” the Inquisitor said. “You can rest assured, the break in your bloodline has been...dealt with.”

“Well, I should hope so,” Reiji said. “After all, I was the one who sent that tip.”

It was a lie that made him want to throw himself into the mists and be torn apart.

But it was this lie that was going to let him live long enough to take his revenge.

The Inquisitor’s eyebrows raised.

“Is that so,” he said.

Reiji waved another dismissive hand. 

“You can hardly think I would do so publicly,” he said. “Think of the scandal it would cause. And my father watched me so closely. It was the only way I could make certain to rectify such a heinous aberration of the Lord Ruler’s laws.”

He bowed his head at this, more to hide the hatred in his eyes than to show respect to the Lord Ruler’s foul name.

The Inquisitor considered this for a long moment. Would he take the bait? Would he believe him?

“The Lord Ruler will look favorably upon your loyalty, and your mature response,” the Inquisitor said. “I will surely inform him of the service you have done him, in upholding his laws.”

Reiji bowed his head again. He began to imagine a very detailed daydream of ripping the Lord Ruler into pieces as the mists had the Inquisitors.

“His favor is honored and well-received,” he said.

The Inquisitor smiled at him when Reiji lifted his head. It seemed his lies were working.

“I think there should be no trouble in naming you the new head of the Akaba family,” he said. “The pronouncement will arrive within the day.”

“And the official report of my father and his daughter’s deaths?” Reiji asked.

“It will be so framed as to leave scandal out of your house’s future.”

Reiji inclined his head, swallowing down the rage. The guilt. The self-hatred.

“I do have one question, Lord Akaba,” the Inquisitor said.

Reiji’s heart leaped, but he kept himself calm, tilting his head.

“Yes?”

The Inquisitor studied him for a moment, or at least, Reiji assumed he did. Inwardly, he shook. Being so close to him, after watching the other Inquisitors, after being held by his throat watching his sister lay in a pool of her own blood —

“Several of our Inquisitors have...wandered off,” the Inquisitor said. “I don’t suppose you may have heard any commotion last night, during the scuffle? Seen them about?”

Reiji blinked as calmly as he could.

The Inquisitors eaten by the mist.

They really were gone.

“I cannot say that I did,” he said. “After all, my father’s daughter left late last night. I had assumed she was executed somewhere in the city.”

The Inquisitor watched him for another long, long moment. Then he smiled. Reiji thought, perhaps, it was the kind of smile that cruel people shared with others they imagined to be as cruel as they were.

It meant, with a twist in his stomach, that he’d been awfully good at lying.

It made him feel sick.

And it made him feel powerful.

“Very well,” the Inquisitor said. “I appreciate your discretion. You will hear your appointment as the Lord of Akaba House from the Lord Ruler soon.”

“Thank you.”

The Inquisitor inclined his head. Then he turned, and left the library. Reiji watched him go. He pretended not to see the horrified look on the servant’s face — she was skaa, wasn’t she? And she’d just listened to him tell an Inquisitor about how he had mercilessly turned in his father and sister for the “crime” of Ray being half skaa.

He hated himself for the illusion. But the servant would surely pass the information on to others, and it would spread even further. No matter what the Lord Ruler’s proclamation said, everyone would know. They would believe Reiji was a coldblooded noble, who adhered to the Lord Ruler’s laws, who thought the skaa less than human.

And that would make it all the more surprising when he was the one to push the blade through the Lord Ruler’s throat.

Reiji calmly returned to his desk. He calmed opened his book again, and opened it up.

“You are dismissed,” he told the servant woman.

The woman shot him one last terrified glance, and then fled, only barely remembering to close the doors behind her.

Reiji stared at the words on the page without reading them.  Inside, the sensation of metal buzzed, ready to be burned.  There was so much to do. Plans to be made. Careful alliances to seek out. Allomancy to learn. Research to complete. It was an impossible list for an impossible task.

Overthrowing a thousand year old empire.  Killing a god.

His hands shook. He tried to still them. He had to...even when no one could see him, he had to maintain the illusion.  The more he practiced, the more natural it would feel, the less he would make mistakes —

Water appeared on the paper. Ah? Was the roof leaking?

It was a useless lie. Fat tears rolled down his cheeks, a numbness spreading through him. Bile rose in his throat. Everything was threatening to crash down around him. He was alone. No one was here to see him break down.

He curled his head up onto the table, closed his eyes, and for the last time until he felt the Lord Ruler’s throat in his hands, he let himself fall apart.