Author's Note: I do realize this is a fan fiction outside of my usual forte, but I have decided to try this one-shot for experience and pleasure.

Note that the story itself takes place chronologically after the end of Phantom Brave: We Meet Again's Another Marona storyline.

Please note that this one-shot contains massive spoilers for both Phantom Brave and Phantom Brave: We Meet Again's alternate story, Another Marona. If you do not mind being spoiled, please read on.

While I cannot fathom why someone would come to this site if they do not wish to be spoiled, I am warning you just in case.

I present:

It Would Never Be Enough

A Phantom Brave One-shot

"Graaagh!"

*slish*

*thunk*

The dragon slammed down onto the rock bed beneath his feet. Mount Kazan was home to hundreds of these... creatures... but no matter how many he killed he still felt a burning sensation in his heart.

Sprout – Sprout the invincible, Sprout the master of the Nine Swords... no challenge was too great for him. He had assisted in defeating Sulphur, and after him the Merchant of Death. He had conquered them both, slew them and absorbed the very evil they exuded...

But it was never enough. His heart, which had once craved revenge like it was gold, had absorbed evil until it was black as soot... it was now empty. Empty as the husk Sulphur now was, rotting in some graveyard.

"Aaaaaagh!"

*slash*

The second dragon fell, its throat slashed open in a single blow by the dark blade Shiva. The dark blade, which had come with Sulphur and outlived the being which had destroyed the world... The blade that had, at long last, absorbed Sulphur's vanishing essence... He wielded the blade for thirty long years, killing Sulphur's minions like they were mere house flies. They had dropped at his feet, and he had compacted their souls into his sword. But still it cried out for blood, whispering maliciously into his ear until he shouted yes, yes, I shall kill and kill until rivers run red and the skulls form a mountain and the sky is crimson.

*chop*

Another, and another... how many did he have to kill before he was satisfied? How many did he have to kill to fill the burning hatred in his heart, to soothe his enraged soul?

And yet his mind would not rest. He could only think of Brianne, Brianne and her suffering, the look on her face as Sulphur's shadows as they robbed of her soul and left her bloody, senseless husk to rot on the floor of his house...

Brianne, who had so often jumped for joy as he came home from a days' hard work... Brianne, who had so often jumped on his arm as he raised her up, laughing with her... Brianne, who had been mercilessly slaughtered by Sulphur. And he, Sprout had killed Sulphur, and it had not brought her back. Nor had it replaced her.

"Raaaaaghhhhhhh..." the fourth cried as it collapsed to Mount Kazan's black surface. It bled. It bled until the ground was stained red with its life force.

Still Shiva cried out for more. More, more, it cried, it will never be enough. Feed my hatred, and you shall be rewarded with my power.

"Dark... Eboreus!" Sprout shouted as the body of the fifth crumpled and shriveled. His sword felt the slightest bit lighter, but it demanded more.

Marona... that girl who reminded him so painfully of what he could not have, and would never have again. He bore seeing her, if it meant Sulphur's death, but she was so similar to Brianne he could not stay. Her behavior, her appearance... it was the exact same. She could almost be her, if she still had the slightest trace of life.. of humanity in her. Brianne. But she was murdered.

Murdered by Sulphur, and never to come back.

"Aaaaaaaaaghhhh!" Sprout roared in a berserk rage as he slammed Shiva through the head of the sixth, killing it instantly. He looked at the blood that came from its corpse, and how it flowed towards the bodies of the others. It seeped until it formed a pool of stagnant, repulsive gore... but there were still more.

The seventh came and was slaughtered... then the eight, and the ninth, and the tenth. They all crumbled to dust beneath his feet, and more came to be exterminated in their place.

Thirty, thirty-six, thirty-nine... They all fell. Forty-five, fifty-seven, sixty-four... They came like fools, and died like gnats.

When, oh when would the torment end?

Seventy, eighty, ninety... They all fell, until at last, at the one hundred and eighth, no more dragons replaced those that fell.

He looked at the battlefield. Dragon corpses were littered everywhere; he could no longer take foot without stepping on one or more. Many of their heads were squashed under his boots. Their limbs were missing, their tails were missing, and the only thing that was there was their blood, flowing freely without end...

He planted his sword in the final one's corpse and let out a chuckle about the irony of the situation. He, Sprout, had conquered a hundred and eight dragons, and yet he could not even quench his own thirst for violence.

He laughed more, at the hopelessness of his situation. He had killed Sulphur and a thousand other beings; when would enough be enough?

But be could not contain himself any longer.

"Hah... hah... hahahah... hahahahaha... Hahahahahahaha! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" He could not stop laughing. It enveloped him, suffocated him, but he could not stop laughing. Even as the vestiges of life were forced out of the corpses at his iron feet, he could not stop laughing.

The sun set on Mount Kazan. Darkness fell. Sprout quit laughing, for he had none left, and ate. He drank, slept, and then awoke to search for more blood to spill – something that would satiate Shiva and himself.

For he knew the answer to his woes, and it would never be achieved.

It would never be enough.