I noticed there was something strange going on…but I…refused to accept it. I knew it, but I couldn't admit it to myself…

He had just ignored it. Pretended everything was fine and carried on. But deep in his subconscious he knew something didn't feel right, knew that the nightmares that haunted him and the gap in his memories indicated horrible truths that his mind was incapable of processing. He was a killer. His brothers, who used to tease him and smile down at him when he was younger and so much smaller than them, were dead by no other hand but his. His sister, sometimes sharp but other times warm, also lost her head to his inability to control the being infused with him. His mother lay at his feet, his sword through her, her blood splattered on his exquisite clothes. Everything wasn't fine. The sky wasn't blue, up and down and right and wrong were all mixed up, the world a swirling mess around him. He wasn't on solid ground. And he hadn't been for a while. But the illusion was so desired that it seemed concrete. The signs were there, emphasized by Leo's growing unease, but he wouldn't register it. He couldn't face reality. It wasn't who he wanted to be, and it wasn't who he really was. But yet it was him. There was nothing he could do about it. He couldn't change it. He no longer fully controlled what he did or who he was. His identity was quickly fading. He had held onto it until the last possible moment, but his illusion crumbled before his eyes into a haphazard pile of death, insanity and nothingness. And he stood at the center of the whirlpool, dragging everything and everyone he cared about toward him. And he didn't even give his ill ease the time of day. At that moment, he hated himself.

Back when he checked for the incuse, after Break's insistence that he was the Headhunter, he feared and almost expected to find one. So when he saw the pale and perfect skin, although he should've been relieved, he wasn't. Even when Gilbert patted his head in reassurance, he felt like any minute everything would break into a million glass shards and he would be the one who had cracked the illusionary mirror with his bare fist. He knew, somewhere within himself, that he was far too good at self-deception to accept reality until the last possible second.

He was always blaming someone else, but the weight of the sins should have rested firmly on his shoulders.

So much for his nobility, so much for his pride.

So much for his scorn of self-sacrifice.

Here he was, bashed and bloody, each strike against Humpty Dumpy pain to his own body, about to say the words that would allow him to reject the dreadful monster, but also end his own life. He was the monster. It was inseparable from him. He looked back on the past that was coming back to him now, but he couldn't bring himself to regret the events that led up to him becoming the contractor of Humpty.

It was far too late for him to return back down the path he came, but there was one last stand he could take. He wouldn't give himself up to the monster. To the very end, he would be himself. He wouldn't let someone else take his life; he wanted to separate himself from the being that tried to take away who he was from him. It was his duty. Even if it required the one thing he really couldn't stand: self-sacrifice. Maybe he preached something he never really understood. Maybe, in some situations, it was redeemable. Maybe not. Either way, the show was over and he was the one closing the curtain. His death was as ironic as they get, and he wondered if some greater being out there laughed at his circumstances. No matter.

The words of rejection left his lips, and the blinding pain, the darkness that did not consume his consciousness entirely right away, hit. Only minutes later would he finally be allowed to float into oblivion.

He remembered vaguely hearing words from Vincent. And he trusted that man with his final words, hoping he'd carry through. I'm sorry. He couldn't make it through everything, and he couldn't protect everyone he cared about to the very end, including Leo. He left him alone. He did all he could but somehow it wasn't enough. He was too far gone to get anything except the short apology out of his mouth, but he hoped it would suffice, and that all the thoughts infused into the few syllables would carry through to Leo. Then, taking a sad excuse for a breath, everything vanished.