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The universe is made of pairs and constants. Constant pairs. Pairs that loop around one another, so entwined that they may never be separated. Not always opposites, but on occasion, lovers, friends, allies against the tide of everything that aims to separate the two. Time and space. Light and darkness. It is, in these murky waters of constants, that pairs seek one another out, a craving so deep in their beings that they may not name it, may not even be aware of it, just know that they’re drawn, inexplicably, to something else. Something that must always be with them. The missing piece. Their infinity.It’s just a matter of finding one another. Once the two touch, there will be no separating them, no great sorrow as the two are fractured by outside forces. There will be no sadness, no pain, no misery. Right?It’s just a matter of finding your soulmate.---Illyana Rasputin dies of self-sacrifice. She dies the way that she lived, in Russia and Limbo, and all the way to Xavier’s Home for Gifted Children-- she dies fighting. She dies ripping the throats out of her enemies, sending them back to their cages made of hellfire and the ashes of her childhood. She dies in her brother’s embrace, her last act that of rebirth. For herself. For the girl that she never had the chance to be.Kitty Pryde is not there to see it.Illyana Rasputin is born again.Illyana Rasputin dies of selfish sacrifice. She dies not of her own doings, but those of a man who sees the world as servant, made to give in to his every whim. She dies as she lived, soft and quiet, innocent of anything but wanting to have the life that she was meant to have. She dies of illness, surrounded by her loved ones. Surrounded by the family that she had always wanted in her first life. She has no last act, that right stripped from her by a man who wears her blood as a symbol of victory.Kitty Pryde sits front row at her funeral.Illyana Rasputin is born again.Illyana Rasputin crawls her way out of the darkest depths of hell, smelling of brimstone and demon blood. She is following a scent trail laid out by Belasco, though she knows not why he would want such a vile creature as herself, all the pure parts of her having died with her second life. She is incomplete, in more ways than she knows, suffering the plague of being without a soul and without her missing piece. Belasco takes one look at her and his lip curls up in disgust. He casts her out into Limbo’s deserts without a second thought. This is not Illyana Rasputin.But she can be something more.There are two things that Illyana Rasputin knows about herself (the self that is dead, the self that hasn’t lived in years, the self that she no longer is): she once wanted to be a gardener, and her best friend is Kitty Pryde.---Love is measured by infinities.The first time that she sees Kitty Pryde with her own eyes and not through the muddled memories of some other person that came before her, Illyana Rasputin is many things. First and foremost, she is sitting at a bar, somewhere in the middle of Indiana, just a few miles away from where the X-Men are taking down some terrible, evil, not so good operation that she didn’t care to get the name of. Second, she is so incredibly, utterly, absolutely not drunk. Demonhood and Russian roots do not mix well with easy intoxication, it seems. Third, she is not Illyana Rasputin, but the Darkchylde, the embodiment of Illyana’s loss of innocence while in Limbo, something evil that Belasco resurrected and rejected and regretted more than anything else, in the end.But that’s a secret that will just stay between the two of us, isn’t it? For all intents and purposes, she is this world’s new Magik. And Magik she shall be, leaning heavily on one arm and increasing the tab of one Charles Xavier with every passing second. After all, heroing is about giving back to the people, isn’t it? Surely Charles wouldn’t mind giving back just a bit more than usual, in exchange for Illyana having a good time.She kicks back another shot. She’s lost count of how many by now, but that won’t be a problem, because surely the bartender is doing an excellent job of noting how many dollars she’s burning. The glass makes a soft thnk as she sets it down again, and her eyes slowly wander over the room.She can’t be bothered to turn in her stool and take a better look, so instead she runs one finger around the rim of the now empty shot glass. Once, twice. Three times, just a bit faster now. A fourth, around the other way. All the while, she keeps her eyes moving, looking for anything of interest.The bar is quiet, unsurprisingly, as it’s a Tuesday evening in the middle of Indiana, and surely no one lives there. The few who are in the room are keeping to themselves and are, unfortunately, unhappily, completely, incurably normal humans. Which sucked, not just for them, but also for the demoness who is bored out of her fucking mind.You have to stay nearby, Illyana, they said. We have to figure out what to do with you before you can wander off. But don’t worry, you’ll have some fun, they said. As if. Illyana Rasputin, dead twice, resurrected three times, ruler of Limbo, powerful beyond compare, known by the name Darkchylde in the darkest corners of hell itself, forced to sit in a bar and twiddle her thumbs while the “grownups” play hero. Just days ago, she was running demons through, ripping out their jugulars, tearing through flesh with her bare hands. And now. Now, this.With a groan, she drops her head on the bar in front of her, knowing that her glass is in the way, knowing that doing so will either end up giving her a rim-shaped circle on her forehead, or maybe, if she does it hard enough, she might end up with a cut or two from glass. Either one is good for her, because then at least it’ll be something, which is always better than nothing. But the glass-to-forehead feeling never comes. Instead, there is only the soft (though not too soft) thump of well-worn wood against her head.“You idiot. You fucking idiot. You stupid, no good, idiot girl.”Illyana doesn’t bother to lift her head, just slowly turns it so that she can get a good, hard look at whoever was foolish enough to sneak up on her while she was lost in her own thoughts, and even more foolishly, decided to insult her while they were at it.What she sees takes her breath away.Standing before her, holding Illyana’s empty shot glass, tears running down her face, and the anger of a god filling her, is Kitty Pryde.And Illyana, oh, Illyana has so many memories of this girl, so much younger than she is now, so filled with hope and determination, but the memories don’t belong to her, not anymore. Because now she’s more of a demon than she ever has been before, and how can such a monster hold onto anything as precious and soft as the time that her past life may have spent with this girl? How can she, when doing so will cause so much pain?She-- the old Illyana, not the new one, who is corrupted and wrong-- has seen this face before. It’s reserved as punishment for only the most heinous of acts, like when Kitty had first been told that joining the New Mutants was a must, not a request, because she was far too young to play in the big leagues, even though she had been doing just that for some time by then. This was the face of a Kitty Pryde who is hurt beyond what she can contain. A hurt that runs so deep, that it changes her whole demeanor.So now, here she is, Illyana Rasputin, sitting at a bar in Indiana, staring at a ghost from a past life. And Kitty is sobbing uncontrollably, and yelling something that Illyana is still too shocked to try and make out.“-- could you? Of course not! You’re sitting here drinking and just letting me think that you’re dead? Years, Illyana! That’s how long I-- I-- you... you motherfucker.” There’s a pause, following this. And then Kitty is wrapping Illyana up in her arms, and they’re so close together now. Something about Kitty smells like the earth and life and Illyana figures now that she understands why she once wanted to be a gardener.“I didn’t think Peter was telling the truth when he told me that you’d be here,” Kitty says softly.Kitty’s tears are soaking through Illyana’s hair now, and she can feel the wet against her neck, can hear the soft breaths that Kitty takes between each word as she regains her composure. Illyana doesn’t respond, she can’t, not when she is now having to hold someone so precious in her arms. So she just wraps her arms around Kitty instead.They remain like that for longer than either could possibly know.“I’m sorry,” Illyana whispers.There’s a conflict in her now, over whether or not she should truly take responsibility for this friendship that her past life had. After all, this Illyana, the one apologizing and holding a girl that she hardly knows, is not the Illyana that once roamed this planet. She is dark, now. Shadows of guilt and corruption weigh heavy on her. She has no soul. She has nothing. She is only an empty husk that even Belasco couldn’t stand to look at.So when Kitty finally pulls back, and when Kitty places one hand on this Illyana’s cheek, and when Kitty leans in and kisses her, there is a part of Illyana that wants to pull away, tell her that she’s got the wrong person. But the part of her that believes in infinity, the part that believes in pairs and soulmates, the part that makes up so much more than she knows… That’s the part that makes her kiss back.And for once, Illyana doesn’t have to claw or tear or fight. Instead, she breathes in, and breathes out, and is content with just that. She feels whole again.And she figures that maybe, she should become a gardener.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Death has spoken to her so many times. It told her, once, of a little girl who lived a life that was never meant to be so broken, so muddled, so hardened by existence. The story spanned over lifetimes, over years and days that wrapped around time itself, doubling back and making wrong out of things that were right. Death told her of angels and demons, of a little girl who grew and who survived both, but couldn’t survive herself.Death has shaken her hand, nodded in her direction, waved at her from across the street. It has motioned towards a family of four, parents with tired smiles and their son who holds his younger sister in his arms. The family that should have been, but isn’t. Should have been, but never was. This girl never had the chance to grow, to fight demons, to become worse than the very creatures that could have come to haunt her. This girl died young, softer than anyone could have wanted.Death makes her a promise, next it sees her. It will come for her, as it has before. It promises that it will stop toying with her. That it will wrap itself around her, firm and steady, and she won’t have to worry about angels or demons or creatures of the night or fighting a losing war against society. It will take all of that away, it promises. Not now, but soon, when her job is done and she has made her mark. She smiles at Death, the kind that pulls at one’s eyes, the kind that is malicious and joyful all at once. And then she holds up her middle finger.She makes a promise in return. She will not be waiting for Death. It will not see her again.