Again

i wanted to make kuroha as good as i could so i did

Concealment. Stealing. Deceiving. Captivation. Focusing. Clearing.

And his own Waking.

… That should be enough.

Kuroha stood up, the six snakes twisting and turning in his hands. Okay, so he could't get all ten, but. Seven should be enough to save the little master, Azami.

For now.

The black snakes slithered around his arms for a while before sinking into his artificial flesh. Temporary storage to be emptied when he returned to the master. And after that, after everything, including his own snake, had been taken out of the hollow shell that some scientist had made, he could finally sleep for all of eternity. A reward for a job well done.

He couldn't wait to be finished.

Kuroha turned, pocketing his pistol (he ignored the feeling of the actor and the idol's blood soaking into his pants) before facing the sobbing mass of fluffy white hair.

"Your Highness, I wished you'd just give it up."

Mary looked up at the tall male, tears streaking down her face. He knelt down next to her, cupping her face with warm hands, warm from the coat of crimson blood that went halfway up his sleeve (Kido's, most likely, since he had basically plunged his hand into her stomach and yanked out the snake of concealment).

How many times had they been through this scene? Twenty times through the same seven days? Something like that. And yet, this little girl kept stopping him. Why? He was only trying to save her family. Bother.

"… I won't stop. Never." Mary's eyes burned red, as if she were trying to pour all of her snake's power into him.

It wasn't working, of course. Kuroha was created to resist the snakes and their eyes. He could see through all their tricks (concealment, deceiving), and the other snakes' abilities didn't work on him (stealing, meeting, captivation, focusing). It had been proven long ago, around twelve time loops back.

"I really think you need to stop. Please." His voice was tinted with a dash of pleading.

Mary shrugged off the bloody hands on her face and stood up. "Never," she repeated, wiping the blood off her cheeks with the back of her hand.

Not that it helped. Her own hands also dribbled red. She had been sitting in Seto's blood (Kuroha had ripped off his head, since that was where the snake of stealing always hid).

Kuroha grasped her wrist. "Mary."

She pulled it away. "Stay away from me, you monster!"

The red sky began to shake, flickering from crimson, to maroon, and back to the usual shade of red. Oh dear. What that scientist had told him (before Kuroha had stabbed him in the heart and extracted the snake of clearing) was starting. He frowned, tilting his face skywards.

"Don't you see? Your grandmother is already beginning to fade away. She needs the power of these snakes."

But Mary was stubborn. "That doesn't mean their deaths were justified!"

He didn't really get it. What was so good about having friends? To him, all that mattered was keeping the little master and her descendants alive (he wished he could have saved the mother, but that was almost eight hundred years behind them). Azami was the reason he was born, right?

Kuroha sighed, turning back to look Mary in the eye. "Look, I'm sorry they had to go, but I won't let the master die."

"Shut up."

"They would have died anyway, if she had died. You know this world can't exist without her."

"Sh-Shut—"

He stood up, shrugging. "Just give up. We've been over this at least twenty times. Nothing will change, even if you reset this world again."

"SHUT UP!" Mary howled, hands clutching her face as hot tears streamed down her face.

Kuroha watched, unmoving, as she screamed at the top of her lungs, as if that would somehow solve everything. Of course it wouldn't. She had screamed the same screams the last time, and the time before that, and the time before that. It never made a difference.

But even so, her screaming drew the snakes out of his body, six black masses of thick black smoke yanking themselves free from his chest. They hissed, slithering towards the medusa. He collapsed onto his knees, the immense power drained from his body as the snakes slowly crept up her legs and sank into her body. The medusa's eyes glowed so brightly, it hurt to look in her direction.

Mary's long white hair snapped in the back, forming clumps that became sharp thorn-like stakes. Scales, the same that Azami had, appeared on her cheeks, and hexagons formed and solidified from the blood on the concrete.

"I don't want to live in a world without my friends!"

Light energy swelled around her body, released with a sonic boom that would have killed an ordinary human. The earth trembled beneath their feet, the sky rapidly collapsing, crumbling away like dried Play-Do.

So this was it. Mary would reset the timeline once more, he would have to slaughter her friends for the twenty-something time, and then she would reset it yet again, and it would repeat for centuries. When would he finally be able to rest?

He closed his eyes, bracing himself for the pain of another reset.

But Mary hesitated.

"Hey, Konoha."

Konoha. He hadn't heard that name in a while, since the scientist had mostly referred to him as Kuroha. The only time he had mentioned his real name to Mary was in loop #3, when Mary demanded to know her attacker's name.

He opened his eyes, ignoring the burning caused by her light.

"Yes, Your Highness?"

What she said next took him completely by surprise. "Next time… I want you to meet the gang, before you kill them all. I want you to be my friend."

He blinked, shocked. Then, he smiled. "Whatever you say, my queen."