Conditions and Contracts

by Aurora Glow

I - Leaving Purgatory

"Where are we going, Hei?" A girl asked, her silver glowing hair gently blowing in a non-existent breeze. She looked around only to discover that they were surrounded by a vast, unending expanse of stars. There was no ceiling or floor to make physical contact with, yet Hei was able to walk through the vacuum of space as if there were.

"To heaven." the man in the black cloak and mask reassured her, carrying her like a damsel in distress. Yin simply nodded to confirm that she agreed or at least hoped that he was correct in his assumption. Hei wasn't in contact with his sense of touch. He couldn't feel his feet making contact with anything nor could he feel Yin's weight, but maybe that was just because she was a generally small girl. "Its beautiful out here...wherever we are." Hei continued. It had been over a decade since he had seen the real stars, the real night sky. "Ahh but i must be dreaming..."

"No." Yin interrupted before Hei could assume that he was merely fantasizing again. Though it was unnoticeable, Hei was hiding surprise under his mask, not expecting Yin to suddenly speak up like that. "You can't be dreaming...Not if I'm able to share this weightlessness with you." she clung on to him tighter, forcing him to feel that she was there with him in his so called dream. This time, he felt her arms clenched around his torso, but at the same time it caused a flash of light to appear, and expand to the end of their personal little dream void, making the stars disappear once again, and hitting the two with a good dose of reality.

As the light faded, it took Hei a moment to notice they were high above the ground, and that the ground seemed to be getting closer the longer he pondered. He failed to notice however, that Yin was quickly drifting away from him as they plummeted down to earth. "Yin!" he tried to scream, only to have his voice taken away by the force of the wind resistance. He desperately extended his hand in hopes of grasping her, but to no avail. Already knowing that she'd been lost, he accepts their fate and closes his eyes.

...

Hei awoke with a gasp. He was sweating profusely and hyperventilating to add on. It had all been a dream like he said. "Dammit" he thought to himself. As he sat up, he had noticed that his cloak and mask and other attire were folded neatly on a bedside table to his right. "Where the hell am I" the room smelled of baked goods and tea. Finally deciding to get up and look around, he equipped his cloak, and hid his mask inside a compartment in his cloak where he usually kept it while off duty. With that, he quietly, and cautiously climbed down the stairs of whatever building he found himself in. The ceiling was noticeably lower than any ceiling he's ever stood under. He had to crouch in order to get down the stairs. As he approached what seemed to be the kitchen, he had begun to hear a voice...singing. Ever so cautiously, he took a peek into the room. To his surprise, it wasn't a matter of who was singing, more of a matter of what was.

The creature standing on four marshmallow like limbs had its back turned to him so it hadn't noticed his presence as of yet. It didn't look threatening, in fact, it looked the opposite. It seemed to be...making tea? Well, it had finished making its tea, and it had turned around. On sight, the creature gasped, and it's pupils shrunk to half it's original size. Seeing how it was possibly about to scream, Hei quickly took a dive and covered it's mouth to muffle it.

"Shhh~" Hei was desperately trying to calm the equine down so that it wouldn't make too much noise or give away his position. The horse like animal had stopped struggling, but now instead was petrified by his touch. Hei let go of it's muzzle, and immediately it began to speak.

"Pleasedonteatmeididntmeananyharmohcelestiapleasejustdonteatme" it squeaked out all in one breath.

"Its okay i'm not going to eat you. I don't eat live animals--wait what?" Hei's facial expression was a mix of "I'm dreaming again." and "Oh crap". "Say that again." he had said almost questioningly, but it's reply was a squeak from judging by the voice and long mane, talking female pony. "Look. I'm not going to hurt you." Hei reassured as if he were talking to Yin "but can you please calm down and tell me who you are and where I am."

After a long moment of hesitation and awkward silence, the pink maned filly spoke. "Umm...I'm Fluttershy, and this is my cottage on the edge of the Everfree Forest where I found you unconcious." she mumbled, barely audible. Hei exhaled, and took another deep breath.

"I'm going to need you to be more specific than that. Ponies don't normally speak as far as I can tell. What country am I in?" he pressed further, trying to get answers. The filly who claimed to be called Fluttershy hid her face behind her mane and gave out yet another terrified squeak as a response. Hei seemed to have given up, and was starting to stand and find the exit of Fluttershy's cottage until he was hit with excruciating pain in his ribs. As a result of the pain, Hei wailed and fell back down, but rolled over just in time so his rib cage wasn't damaged anymore than it already was. He hadn't noticed the pain in his upper abdomen and torso until just now, and was harshly surprised at how immense it was.

"Oh no." Fluttershy suddenly had a change of heart and rushed over to Hei's aid. "You musn't move. When I found you on the edge of the Everfree Forest, you were badly injured. You'd broken three ribs somehow." Fluttershy hoisted Hei over her back and began bringing him back upstairs to the bedroom where he first awoke. Once back in the bed, Hei found Fluttershy to be staring at him like waiting for him to say something. After a second of thought he did.

"Tell me...did you find...a girl...with me?" Hei said in between pauses to groan in discomfort. Fluttershy shook her head, her eyes now locked onto his. "Dammit...lost her...again." Hei was on the verge of tears him being a contractor who retained his feelings as a human. "I've already lost Pai...not...Yin."

"Um...mister...who are you talking about?" Fluttershy asked quietly and quizzically. She tilted her head in confusion, her eyes ever gazing into Hei's. It took Hei a moment to think about the question. He didn't know exactly why. He knew for sure who he was talking about otherwise he wouldn't be talking about hem, but he still took his time answering Fluttershy's question.

"My closest, dearest friends..." Hei had let a single tear fall out of his eye. Fluttershy, feeling sympathy for the stranger in her house tried to comfort him.

"Please don't cry mister. When somepony else cries, it makes me feel sad as well." Fluttershy nuzzled his cheek to show that she had cared. "Do you...want to talk about it?" the normally shy filly offered. Hei simply shook his head, hiding true desperation. He needed to talk to her, to anybody. His mind was telling him to just let it all out, but he was a contractor. An emotionless, heartless killer whose judgement are only based on logic and not will of heart. "Well...then get some rest. You won't be healed for a couple days without a healing spell." This got Hei's attention.

"Wait, healing sp-" Hei blurted out before the door closed behind Fluttershy. Hei was alone again and was left with nothing but to comply with Fluttershy's requests until he was healed properly. "Why didn't I just die from the fall?"

...

Yin was sitting on an uncomfortable wooden chair inside what had seemed to be a...tree house. She was taken in by a certain lavender bookworm after being discovered along side a path to Zecora's in the Everfree Forest. She'd shown no sign of being dangerous to Twilight, and to the unicorn's surprise was able to understand the modern Equestrian lingo.

"You seem to understand me, but can you speak?" Twilight spoke while at the same time was burying her face into a book on native Equestrian wildlife. The response that she received was a blink, a moment of hesitation and a quick nod. "Well then...why don't you try saying something? Start with where you're from, and where if any are the rest of your kind? My book doesn't give me any hints as to what you are, so why instead of looking into one of my old tomes, why don't you tell me instead?" Twilight was trying to be as calm as possible, trying to contain her desire to just bombard this creature with experiments and questions. In return for her politeness, she got a blink and a blank stare.

The screaming, and groaning that followed could not be described with mere words, so they are only to be mentioned, and not described. "Alright then. Fine!" Twilight was just getting over her tantrum, and a devious smile began to stretch from cheek to cheek. "If you won't talk, then I'll just force the information out of you...In the name of science!" The purple scholar's horn began to glow intensely, and her facial expression had shown that she was putting all of her effort into casting the spell. Suddenly, a jolt of purple static came from Twilight's horn, and hit Yin, encompassing them both in Twilight's lavender aura.

Twilight found herself in a scene she thought was quite distasteful. She was seeing from her guests eyes, a memory reading spell. The first thing she saw was a figure. It wore a black cloak and hid it's face under an eerie looking mask which happened to be messily stained by blood. The floor, and walls were painted crimson after taking a look around. Bodies of more strange beings lay piled on top of one another by the dozen. Twilight wanted more than anything to will herself to leave the scene, to walk away, or for the spell to wear off, but the memory wasn't over yet. The next thing she knew, the cloaked figure was full on sprinting its way over to her. Twilight swore she could see the intent to kill on the creature's eyes behind that horrid mask. As it closed in, and the blow was about to be struck, a flash of purple light came in between her and the attacker, and the spell had finished before it was able to reach her.

Twilight was hyperventilating hard, and was soaked in a cold sweat sweat from her mane to her hooves. She turned around to see Yin, still stone faced, intently sitting on the undersized wooden chair. Twilight then proceeded to put on a fake, plastered smile that hid true fear, and without hesitation, she left the room in a hurried trot. Yin sat there the rest of the day undisturbed.

...

End of Chapter One

Author's Note

I actually watched Darker than Black a really long time ago. So if you've watched the anime, and find that I have some plot details wrong, please don't hesitate to inform me. This is only my third fiction, my first fic got cancelled, my second i got rid of entirely because it totally sucked. I'm still not used to writing unlike my younger brother Fluttrick, but I intend to try to make a little more time for it and get into the flow of things soon. I will now proceed to type unnecessary words for the sake of reaching two thousand words in the first chapter. OCD... This is Gale signing out.

Comments

[Aurora Glow]

732280 Sorry I knew that I'd do something wrong with this. Hei is kind of a hard character for me to follow since I'm so used to seeing characters filled with emotion. Hei and Yin are two characters who have almost no emotion whatsoever. I tried to put some sort of feeling into them, but as you can see, that didn't turn out so well.

[#1Lunafan328]

I'm interested in where this will go.

[lichmewtwo]

a Darker then black crossover?! must read NAOW.

[NotABrony]

lol in the name of science

[deathnoteno1fan]

Ain't Yin blind, so wouldnt her memory be different? Also Hei is showing a bit too much emotion. Yin is Awesome, totally blank and didn't say a word.