Author's Note: This chapter is my take on Onna and Decim's interactions in episode three. Technically it's independent of the other chapter, but it follows the plot of the story mostly so you might like to read them in order. I'd like to thank everyone for their support so far, and I hope you continue to do so! Enjoy the story.

Chapter Two: The Voices in Our Hearts

An arbiter with human emotions. . .

Jimmy loved Chavvo's smile. . .

But Chavvo was deaf...

Our duty as arbiters is to draw out the darkness...

Onna, Onna, Onna, Onna. . .

Hail. Those who are about to die, we salute you.

A cacophony of shrill, unsynchronized voices converged on Onna in an ambush behind the darkness of her flittering eyelids. She tossed and turned, flinging the sheets off of herself, clinging to the pillows, pulling her pajamas above her head to block out the sound inside it. Limbs drenched in hot sweat thrashed about in the small space, but she couldn't fight her way out of this nightmare. It wouldn't release her.

When the imagination sleeps, words are emptied of their meaning. . .

If it is understanding that you seek, then wake up. . . Wake up. . .

Onna. . . Woman. . . Woman. . .

She bolted out of sleep as though an invisible hand had shoved her out of the dream and down a flight of stairs. A scream lodged itself obstinately in her throat, begging to be disgorged, but she swallowed it and her terror. The confusion, however, was not so easily stomached. What did all these phrases mean? Where were they from, from whom, for what purpose? She sighed and trudged into the bathroom to dress, forcing her mind to focus on the present. Failing at this task was not an option, for if she did. . . For Onna the consequences were unnamed and unspeakable. Looking in the mirror, she lamented that there was no concealer in the afterlife, the place where it was most needed. Hoping Decim wouldn't notice the bags beneath her eyes was too much to ask. After all, it was his job to see everything. Perhaps he would pity her and give her at least one martini. Again, that, too, was too much to ask.

Shutting the door to her room, she looked around the winding hallway filled with doors that all looked like hers. Ever since she had woken up her, she'd always wondered what was in the rest of them. Empty, she suspected, but there was no way to know for sure unless she checked. A peek certainly couldn't hurt. Because of her nightmares, she had woken early than she planned, so there was still time to kill. The moral part of her told her to respect people's privacy, and after the events of the past few days, she was rather more inclined than normal to heed it's advice.

Although, the only way I'm going to learn anything about the Quindecim is if I search for information myself. Nona and Decim certainly won't tell me anything other than on a need to know basis.

Onna wandered down the labyrinthine halls, checking doors at random. Many of them turned out to be locked, some were empty, some appeared to be overflow storage closets for Decim's unnerving hobby. She sighed, mentally berating herself. Of course the arbiters wouldn't be foolish enough to put anything out for her in plain sight. She had nearly lost her hope and her interest in the matter when she saw a door with light, normal, yellow light, seeping beneath it. Who could be inside? Had they gone and forgotten to shut out the light, or were they still there?

Onna took off her heels and approached the door quietly, on tiptoe. She hovered her ear near the wood, listening for signs of occupancy. It sounded like water was running inside. . . a bedroom and bath? Her eyes widened in realization, and as she began to back away from the door, it opened. Strings swirled around her and tangled her up, precluding her escape back into anonymity.

With a look of embarrassed frustration, Onna looked down at Decim from where he held her dangling just outside his door. To her surprise, he was not yet fully dressed. The bartender ensemble still lacked the vest, and the top few buttons on his shirt had yet to be done. She could see the tension in his collarbone, the tendons in his neck. Inside the room, a bed was unmade, and off to the right, she heard more distinctly the sound of water running in the adjoining bathroom.

"Onna," he said, impassively as ever. More than usual, she wished she could tell what he was thinking.

She tried the only tactic available to her in her present situation: changing the subject. "You sleep?" The threads were loose enough this time that she was able to move her hand and point at the crumpled sheets.

"Infrequently." He continued buttoning his shirt and dressing in front of her as if it were perfectly normal. Somehow, she was relieved he hadn't made a fuss over the minor show of skin. It only would have made matters more awkward than they already were. "You are truly too astounding for your own benefit. Perhaps I should string you above my ceiling every night so I can keep an eye on you."

"Call me crazy, but I almost want to say you're joking."

"I am."

"Hm," Onna teased, "I wasn't aware you had that capacity."

With his back to her, he replied cryptically, "There are many things about me of which you are unaware."

"All right, Shakespeare, could you cut the drama, and these threads?"

Another thread snaked into the bathroom and turned off the sink. Those threads are creepy, but pretty convenient I have to admit.

"Since Nona has entrusted me with your growth and development, as both an arbiter and as your mentor I am responsible for your chastisement."

"Hey, if this is another joke—"

"It is not."

Before Onna realized what was happening, he was moving the threads, condensing them and drawing her toward the ground, controlling her limbs and forcing her on her knees with her hands before her face in a praying position. "Why is this such a big deal? It isn't as if I purposefully meant to walk in on you!"

"You must learn humility to your superiors."

Onna rolled her eyes. "You mean like you and Nona? Don't be a hypocrite, Decim. I saw your fist twitch the last time she gave you an order."

He sighed and gently unfolded her, setting her back on her feet. "You are simultaneously exhilarating and exasperating."

She smiled, pleased with her improvements in her ability to elicit reactions from him. "You know you love me."

"I would not quite say that, but your presence here at Quindecim is not unwelcome."

"Do you mind?" Onna gestured at the paperback book lying on the comforter of the bed. With a nod from Decim, she sat on the side of the bed and picked it up, caressing the pages, reveling in the existence of something so mundane in this surreal place. She flipped it over to the cover.

"Heart of Darkness, huh? Can't say it's irrelevant, here of all places. I used to like this book, I think."

Decim turned toward her in surprise, buttoning up his vest and fixing his collar. "You read literature?"

"I don't know. I still don't remember anything about myself. This book just. . . draws me, I guess." She yawned, leaned her head back against the pillows on his bed. Exhaustion overrode any sense of manners the woman possessed.

"Is something the matter?"

Onna closed her eyes. "Honestly, I know so little about myself that I couldn't tell you whether something was bothering me or not."

Onna jumped when she felt the presence of something hovering by her head, worried it was the arbiter's threads again. Instead, when she opened her eyes she saw him standing there, watching her with eyes quite unlike his usual expression but still inscrutable. A hand reached out and rested on the top of her head for a moment before returning to his side.

"Come with me, and I'll make you a drink before our guests arrive."

The unanticipated kindness of the bartender almost seemed enough to shock her back into her normal peppy, sarcastic self.

"Thanks, Decim."

Shortly after their drink, the two guests arrived, both college students it seemed. Decim sent her to greet the girl while he woke the boy. To be honest, she was more than a little nervous. This would be the first time assisting in the arbitration, and the horrors of the honeymoon couple' ending had yet to fade in their gruesome clarity. When she tapped the girl sleeping on the bench to wake her, she could not help but picture her lying on the ground in agony, her eyes wide in pain and awful realization that she was dead. She could not help but see her lunging at the other human with darkness in her eyes, held back by Decim and twisting in his threads, screaming grime churned up from the bottom of her soul.

However, when the girl's eyes flickered open, they were pure, innocent, blissfully unaware. How long would it take for Decim to destroy that, she wondered.

"Um. . . excuse me, but where am I? I can't seem to remember anything at all."

Onna put a hand on her forearm to steady her and help her stand. "It's all right that you don't remember. We—" aren't going to hurt you? How can you say that and know it will be true? "we understand."

"We? Are there more people here?"

The woman nodded, smiled. "Let me take you to them, I'm sure they're waiting for us."

At the bar, the other student questioned Decim, who merely dodged the inquiries with pathetic apologies. Onna smiled at both the girl and the boy, helping the former into a seat at the bar before joining the arbiter behind the counter. They explained the rules and, as expected, the two of them ran off to verify that there really was no escape. Once they were sufficiently convinced, they returned, pressed the button, and predictably jumped as a bowling alley erupted next to the bar.

"Well," Onna whispered quietly to Decim, "this sounds safe. What's the catch?"

"You should be aware that not all of our games involve physical pain."

"Sure had me fooled."

They watched them bowl from the counter, watched them stick their fingers into each other's nervously pounding hearts, watched them fall into friendship, and then into love. Onna tried to remember if she had ever been in love, but she drew a blank, unable to even recall what precisely love felt like. Disappointed with her own lack of memories, she decided to probe into Decim's.

"Have you ever been in love before?"

Only his eye sliding in her direction hinted that he was actually paying attention to her. "Why the curiosity?"

She shrugged. "There are a lot of things I want to know about arbiters. About you. That, and I suppose you are my only point of reference since I can't remember anything."

"It is not unheard of for arbiters to become close—partners is perhaps what the humans would call it—but as you know, we have no true emotion, so it cannot be called love. Physical manifestations of—"

Onna slapped her hand over Decim's mouth before he could say more. "I didn't ask about your sex life!"

He calmly removed her hand and continued speaking. "You need not worry yourself, for there is nothing to speak of. As I was saying—"

"Wait, you mean you haven't. . .?"

"No. Physicality has always been secondary to mentality for me."

"Oh. Sorry, this isn't my business. I shouldn't have asked." Onna pressed her hands over her face to hide the heat rushing to her cheeks. God, what's wrong with you?

"Do not apologize. Already you have led me to discover much about humans, so for you I do not mind serving as an encyclopedia regarding arbiters."

They fell silent, returning their attention to the progression of the game. Both players looked like they were actually having fun, laughing and joking and playfully nudging each other back and forth. She smiled, happy for them, happy they were not turning out like their previous guests.

"It looks like they'll both be judged favorably," Onna said quietly, a subtle hint inviting Decim to share his opinions on the arbitration.

"Do not be so sure they will have the fairy tale ending you dream of."

"That was cryptic, care to explain?"

"No."

She didn't know what possessed him to grab him by the collar, sleep deprivation maybe, but before she really knew what she was doing, she had pulled his face down to her level. "Tell me what you meant!"

Extricating himself from her grasp, he intoned, "Very well, but you must promise not to raise your voice again."

Onna leaned into him so he could whisper in her ear. The aura radiating in his personal space was cool, as though somehow his body temperature were far lower than hers. Now that she thought about it, all the arbiters seemed to have auras. Being around Nona made her hair stand on end, like she was standing in the middle of an electric storm. Decim's cool mist of a whisper seeping into her ear distracted her from further pursuing her hypothesis. When the meaning of his words registered, she found herself crying out before she could help herself.

Decim's large, cold hand fell over her mouth as he pulled her close and leveled her with a stern look. His arm pressed into her shoulder as he leaned down to say, "Behave yourself." She struggled against the hand on her mouth with both of her own, but he was stronger than he looked. The more she writhed and talked against his hand, the more he pulled her into him, until her back was against his chest and his other arm wrapped loosely around her neck, his body encircling her in a wintry cage. At some point, she stopped resisting and instead relaxed into him, finding that the position they were in was actually quite comfortable. The fact that she felt safe there did not alarm her as much as it should have.

When she quieted down, he began to remove his hand, but she stopped him, pulling the hand around herself to rest on her shoulder like the other one.

"Just for a minute. Please," she murmured, closing her eyes.

"Is something the matter?" Against her back she could feel his voice emanate deep in his chest and resonate against her.

"I don't know. But this helps."

"As you wish."

He let her stay watching the guests in his arms until their game ended. Then he released her as they left the counter to complete their duties. The girl pulled Onna aside and began speaking quietly to her.

Her eyes were as pure as they had been when she had awoken. "Please, let us have time for a short date. You know what love is like, so please, just for a moment."

"Wait, what was that last part?" Onna said, raising a skeptical eyebrow.

"It's clear that you two care about each other," Mai giggled. "You must have some sort of connection."

Onna groaned. "It's nothing like that at all. I'm not in love with him, and he is incapable of loving anyone, let alone me."

For a college student, there was such wisdom in that knowing smile she gave the assistant. "I thought that way too, that love couldn't really beat all the odds and come true. But then I died, and everything has changed. A lot of things change in the afterlife, so I'm certain it's no different for you and that man."

"All right, kid, I'll ask Decim to let you have your date, but for the last time, I'm not in love."

"That ended better than I could have hoped," Onna said, reclining on the couch in the bowling alley while Decim cleaned the balls. Now that their links had gone, the hearts no longer beat. It was saddening to see the things that had created love look so lifeless now.

"I respect humans who live a fulfilled life," Decim responded without diverting his attention from the pink ball he cleaned.

If you had to arbitrate me, I wonder if you'd think I had lead a fulfilled life. I wonder if I'd think so.

"What did Mai say to you earlier when she pulled you aside?"

"I'm surprised you've taken an interest in something non-work-related."

He merely clicked his teeth, waiting for an answer.

"She just asked me to put in a good word for their date, that's all." No way in hell she was brining up their conversation about love.

"Onna," he said, very slowly, very deliberately, "I have a sneaking suspicion you are lying to me."

Thank God he wasn't looking at her right now. "Now you're just over-analyzing things. Why would I lie to you?"

"It really is a poor decision to lie to an arbiter."

Onna smirked. She felt terrified and excited at the same time. "Not particularly. Unless I tell you, it isn't as if you have a way to verify your sneaking suspicion."

Decim stopped shining the ball and set it gently back down on the rack. "Then I simply have to make you tell me."

Onna rolled her eyes, standing to stretch. "Oh no, I'm quaking in my heels. What are you going to do, string me up for the nth time since I've met you?"

"No." As he drew out that one harmless word, she could feel the smirk stretching across his lips. He turned around, watching her with a distinctly invested expression.

"Well, then wha—"

Onna moaned and fell to her knees, clenching at her chest. She knew what he had done the instant she felt it. His hand was in her heart. His fingers were a cool intrusion in it's squishy, vulnerable caverns. The mere presence of those three fingers was enough to make not only her heart but her mind tingle in an overpowering buzz. Every time her heart beat, she could feel the organ throb around his fingers. As he had promised the guests, there was no pain, but the vaguely pleasurable, clearly disquieting sensation of those hands inside her heart was in a way worse than pain.

"D-Decim, I swear if you don't remove you fingers—"

Onna shivered as he pushed his fingers deeper into the chambers of her heart, slapping her hand over her mouth to keep any unsolicited sounds from reaching his ears.

"Now, now," he chided, obviously enjoying himself, "you are in no position to make threats. If you would like me to remove my hands, then simply tell me what Mai said to you."

"I really wasn't lying, you know. Why would I hide something a guest said from an arbiter?" Onna began to slowly stand, making her way towards Decim, towards the blue ball still left on the rack.

"Your heart rate is quite erratic. What do you think, is it because my hands are in your heart, or because you are lying?"

By now, his cool hands had warmed to the temperature of her heart, and the lack of temperature difference only intensified the stimulus.

"Give me back my heart," Onna said, and once the words were out she knew she hadn't meant them only literally. As long as she kept talking to distract him, she should be able to reach the blue ball.

"I'm afraid at the moment I'm disinclined to do so. You see, it is simply too powerful an asset to yield up so easily."

Onna was close enough to touch the ball now, so she lunged for it, aiming her thumb, index and middle fingers for the holes to activate the link. She would have made it if that damn bastard hadn't thrust his fingers farther into her heart. She fell to her knees again at the unexpected onslaught of sensation, breathing heavily.

"After I was able to commandeer yours so easily, did you truly believe I would leave my heart exposed?"

"Why are these sensations so intense? Those college students behaved nothing like this when they used the same balls."

Decim looked down at her, impassive once again. "For whatever reason, the link is deeper this time. There is a greater initial connection between us than between them."

Onna dragged herself to lean against the ball rack, her heart still beating quickly. "Just take your hands out already and I'll tell you. I'm getting tired."

The bartender bowed and removed his hands from her heart, sitting the ball back down on the rack next to the blue one. "Thank you for playing."

"Hilarious." Behind her back, Onna's arm inched up the rack, aiming for the blue ball. "I admit that you're right, I was lying." Just a little further. . .

"What is it she said to you that you feel you must conceal from me?"

Gotcha. Onna pulled the blue ball, the ball containing his heart, off the rack and slipped her fingers inside. She shivered at the drastic temperature difference, not prepared for how cold his heart was. How was it even functional?

Decim didn't exactly drop to his knees, but he did gasp ever so quietly and stagger back, gripping his chest as if he wanted to burrow inside it and extract her fingers himself. Just to be safe, she grabbed her ball and sat on it, the holes facing down toward the floor.

"You astounding woman," he breathed.

"So," Onna smiled, "how does it feel to have a taste of your own medicine?"

"Your hands. . . are all humans this hot?"

"Yes." She wiggled her fingers around in his heart, pushing them deeper and laughing as his heart rate increased in response. The folds and crevices of his heart closed around her fingers, as if they didn't want her to go.

"That is enough of that."

Threads lifted her into the air and grabbed the pink ball she'd been sitting on, rolling it across the floor to Decim. With nowhere to run, she writhed against the silk threads as he inserted his fingers into the holes, one at a time to torture her. His web was the only thing keeping her on her feet as he delved deeper into her heart. Since her hands were bound, she couldn't restrain the sighs that escaped through her parted lips. At last the blue ball slipped from her fingers and rolled onto the floor.

"Now this is just unfair," Onna complained, leaning back against the web in a futile attempt at distancing herself from the fingers burrowing into her heart.

"Whose fault is it that you attempted to lie to me?"

"I didn't lie, exactly. I purposefully withheld information because it is irrelevant to your duties as arbiter." She yawned, tried to keep her eyes open in front of the man that had twice taken her heart. "But if you must know, Mai told me she wished I could be as happy as she was. That we could both find happiness because we deserved it for what we'd done for her." There, that wasn't exactly a lie, either.

Decim's eyes softened, his eyelids drooped, but he didn't quite smile. "I see."

His web gently lowered her to the ground while he put away both the pink and blue balls. "Sleep well, Onna."

"Hey, Decim?" Too tired to even go back to her own room, she made herself comfortable on the bowling alley couch. From somewhere, the bartender's threads retrieved a blanket and covered her with it.

"Yes, what is it?"

"I hope Mai was correct. I hope we can find happiness, too. I hope you, you who can feel no emotion, experience happiness and love some day."