The Serpent Inside (A Karmagisa Fanfiction)

29: Trance

Nagisa glared at the phone as Yumi hung up on him for the third time. Clearly, he was getting nowhere when it came to getting information on what was bothering her, and he would likely need to practice interrogation on Karma, and then meet her in person to get the information out of her.

A loud sigh alerted Karma to Nagisa's inner struggle. Karma closed his book and walked over to curl his arm around Nagisa's side and pull the blue-haired male flush against him. Karma rubbed small circles into Nagisa's back as he brought his other hand to caress Nagisa's pale cheek.

"Hey, what's bothering you?" Karma asked.

"I just want Yumi to tell me what's wrong... I know it's bad but she's not telling me over the phone. I think I should meet her in person." Nagisa grumbled.

"It's alright. Maybe it's not as much of a big deal and we should leave her alone?"

Nagisa gave an unimpressed stare. "You saw her, she's a mess. Normally I'd leave her be until she reached out but this is something bigger and she's just being stubborn. I'm going to figure out what is happening with her."

Karma nodded as he brought his face to nuzzle into Nagisa's fluffy hair. "Yeah, I know. Yumi is usually so in control of herself, but something must have really set her off. Something big happened and I want to help her too but she's made it clear she isn't going to tell us so what can we do?"

"I told you the other day I could get her to talk without knowing it, didn't I?"

Karma nodded, slowly pulling his face away from the blue hair it was pressed up against.

"So you're going to do that hypnosis thing to her?"

"Kinda, yeah. I was hoping you would let me practice on you before I try it on her. If she realizes what I'm doing before I do it there's a chance she'd be able to ignore me and she might get angered."

Karma hummed, "Alright, you can practice one time."

Nagisa smiled and kissed Karma's forehead before separating the two of them to sit side-by-side rather than pressed together.

"Okay, think of a number. I'll get you to tell me the number." Nagisa instructed. Karma nodded once before deciding on his number.

"Alright, we'll start as if we just saw each other. Hey, Karma! How are you?" Nagisa asked cheerfully.

"I'm doing alright, work has been pretty stressful lately though. How about you?"

Nagisa gave his reply as he focused on determining Karma's wavelength. Slowly he managed to get an exact image within his mind, a glowing red wave spiking up and down as Karma spoke.

Nagisa focused on slowing his heart slightly to match Karma's speed, changing the way he spoke and sat to match his own blue wavelength to Karma's until they were perfectly in sync. A small smile grew on his face once that was complete.

Now, he could work on the second stage of trance. Right now Nagisa had Karma off-guard, the matching wavelengths influencing Karma's thoughts that Nagisa was harmless. While Karma was never worried about Nagisa himself the first place, the redhead now most likely had stopped worrying about Nagisa learning the number, but any mention of it would snap his guard back up.

Nagisa dropped his voice to a softer, more sultry octave. It was as though Nagisa coated the sounds coming from his lips in honey, the sweet taste fogging Karma's logical thought process as he focused on the sound without taking as much note of what Nagisa was actually saying, his mouth running on auto pilot.

Nagisa smiled as he watched Karma's eyes glaze over, his signal that Karma no longer was truly listening. The conversation was currently about how Seizon was doing, so Nagisa worked to slowly move the topic to mathematics.

"So Seizon is fed twice a day, right?"

"Mhm..."

Nagisa smiled internally at Karma's muted response, his second tell.

"Twice, that reminds me of second grade. I remember one day we were learning about multiplication and factors, and we played this game. Do you want to hear about the game?"

"Yeah..."

"We each picked a number, and had to say what that number's factors were. The other person had to guess the number based on the factors. Hey, didn't you pick a number earlier? What was it?"

"Twenty-five..."

"Ah, I see, thanks!"

Nagisa smiled as he got the number before slowly backtracking so Karma would return to awareness gradually instead of snapping back suddenly. Once Karma's eyes cleared up, Nagisa smiled.

"You told me the number."

"I did? When?" Karma's face morphed to confusion.

"Just a minute ago. The number was twenty-five."

Karma blinked a few times. "Wow, I don't even remember telling you that... Thinking back I don't remember much after talking about Seizon for a while. You did something with your voice and I only remember feeling like you were surrounding me with warmth."

Nagisa smiled and nodded. "Once our wavelengths matched your guard was down and you stopped worrying about me learning the number, but if I mentioned anything you'd snap out of it. But I was able to get you to stop listening to exactly what I was saying and to instead focus on how my voice sounded. Since you weren't consciously listening you weren't worried about answering questions and were kind-of on autopilot, so when I naturally brought the conversation to what I wanted to know you gave it up without a fight."

"Wow. That was... really relaxing actually. No wonder you got my to tell you exactly what you wanted." Karma chuckled.

Nagisa smiled as he returned to his place cuddled up against Karma's side.

"Do you think it'll work on Yumi?" Nagisa murmured softly.

Karma shrugged, "Probably, you aren't the Blue Krait for nothing. It'll be fine."

Nagisa smiled and pressed a kiss onto Karma's chest. "Thanks."

Karma kissed the crown of Nagisa's head. "Of course. You've been working so hard. Why don't you just take a nap, okay?"

Nagisa made a non-committal noise, but soon enough his breath slowed to match the slow beat of Karma's heart.