[NERO]

The sword in his hands has a poisonous voice, Nero thinks, but it was made of sweetness and gentleness, coaxing dark thoughts and violent ideas from where Nero buried it in the recesses of his mind. The voice calls him by his name, in such a lovely voice, such a comforting voice. He can't help but listen, feels warmth bloom in his chest when he cuts down the people in white and the voice in his head approves, cooing at how he's such a good child, a worthy inheritor to the bloody throne of his father, whatever that means. Whatever that means.

Yamato is cold and cruel as Nero wields her, chasing after the people in white, cutting down with wild, savage strokes, knowing, knowing, knowing it was these people who tortured him, who violated him, broke him into pieces and scattered his soul somewhere. He's hurt, he's hurting, he's violated and those who violated him, broke him, touched his soul in such a foul manner is going to die.

He aches all over, feels his soul stretch itself thin, desperately patching up the missing gaps in his soul, and it hurts to move, to breathe, to think, but Yamato coaxes him, keeps him focused. There are people in white who needs to pay, and so Nero presses on, chases down the people in white like a wolf after sheep. Poisonous, traitorous, dangerous sheep.

If they were even sheep at all.

Nero looks dispassionately at the man he pounces on, Yamato cutting, slipping through flesh and bones and organs like it was no trouble. Blood bubbles from a mouth stretched wide in a silent scream of terror, as the now dead man sinks to his knees before toppling.

The scent of blood is strong. After all, Nero had painted this whole maze of white walls with the red of blood and gore.

Nero breathes erratically, shaking like a leaf, hands trembling but remaining locked around Yamato's tsuka.

There's blood all over him too, he notices; on his clothes – a plain white hospital robe – on his scaled hands and on his claws. Nero's sure he looks less than human right now – if he was even human at all – looking every inch the demon he fears he was. Nero wants to laugh, and laugh, and laugh, but all that comes out of his mouth is a strangled breath, too fast and too unsteady to be called normal.

He drops to the floor, Yamato clattering loudly on the marble, and Nero hugs his knees to himself, shaking and trembling at the force of his suppressed sobs. He's hurt, he's in pain and he doesn't know what to do, what to think. He just killed people, so many of them, so many, so many, the white walls are red, and the smell of blood wouldn't go away, wouldn't disappear and he can taste the copper and the rust on his tongue, the taste of blood, the smell of blood, the sight of blood, the feel of blood-

It's familiar, he knows it, he wishes he doesn't, but he knows it, he knows blood, how he painted this walls red with the blood and guts of the people who hurt him, who violated him, who tortured him-

Nero lets out a strangled sob, claws digging into his arms, tears dripping down his face, to drop onto his skin, to soak in his bloodied robe. Nero can count on one hand the times he cried with fingers to spare, but he can't care about that right now. In the middle of a corridor seeping with blood, Nero cries in near silence, and the sound echoes against the marble walls. Mocking, derisive.

This wasn't supposed to happen, this wasn't supposed to happen, this isn't true. He's hallucinating, he's sure, still knocked out cold from the hard fight with Bael, because he's heavily injured, got banged up real good. The toad snuck in a lot of good hits, after all, and Nero hit his head none too gently. After all, even with him as he is, Nero has limits that surpasses human limitations-

He's not human.

Never was, never will be.

The blood in the walls speak of this truth. The scent of copper and rust agree. The blood on his clothes and his hands back up this statement.

The bodies strewn throughout this maze of marble, remains of Nero's earlier mindless massacre, is proof that they screamed at him with their voices thick with fear, with terror. They're afraid of him, he was the cause of their fear, he made them scared. They died afraid, murdered violently, all because they pulled to the surface what scared Nero the most.

Nero chokes down another sob, eyes wide and unseeing as he stares at the red-slicked wall in front of him, surrounded by bodies he cut down, sitting in a pool of blood.

He doesn't know how long he curls up there, in the middle of a blood-soaked corridor. Maybe a few minutes, maybe hours. Maybe even a day or more. Who knows? He doesn't. When he finally reaches out and wraps clawed fingers around Yamato's tsuka, he joints are stiff, and his muscles ached, a hint to how long he didn't move.

The tears have long dried on his cheeks, and Nero only feels empty, feels numb and displaced. Yamato is cold in his hand, but heavy, a sure weight, and its voice is back, whispering, whispering, always whispering and coaxing. It was better that the death throes of the people he keeps hearing inside his own head.

Nero.

Yamato shuts up, then, and it wasn't the katana's voice this time. He cocks his head, eyes staring listlessly at the bloodied wall as he strains his ears.

Nero. Come down, come down. We're here.

Nero gasps then, falling to a knee as his chest throbs with excruciating pain, his whole body aching, his whole soul aching. There's something pulling on his soul, his very being-

These people in white, these people who he cut down with all the grace and finesse of a butcher, broke his soul and took pieces of it. Took pieces of his soul and left them somewhere. He can feel where they are – trapped, trapped, trapped, in pain, in pain, so much pain, it hurts, it hurts, Nero, Nero, Nero, help us please, please – can hear them.

The pieces of his soul that are ripped away from him.

He stands back up on shaky legs, weak and out of it, but he manages to put one foot in front of the other. Then another. Then another. On and on and on until he is walking – stumbling – towards where Yamato leads him to. For once, Yamato isn't giving him words of honeyed poison, rather, its frantic, maybe even worried, and it urges Nero to pick up the pace, move, move, move, collect his soul before he breaks apart and shatters.

Before he disappears and dies.

Nero is hurting, and he wants to rest, wants to silence the noise in his head, but. He doesn't want to die. He doesn't want to die, even with the blood on his hands, with the lives he claimed – payment, it's a payment for the vile acts they did on him, Yamato would whisper – he. Doesn't. Want. To die.

There's… something waiting for him, right…? Or rather, there's…. there's someone waiting for him. He can't die yet, no, he can't die, he will not die. He has someone to meet. He doesn't know who, but he has someone to meet, and he wants to meet them again.

Someone with green eyes, someone with a lovely and warm voice, someone who's represents honor and safety. He has to meet them, he has to get back to them. He can't die, not yet, not yet, he has to go meet them-

So he limps on. And on, until he reaches a wall. Yamato grows light in his hands, and he knows what to do. He cuts the wall open, revealing it to be a hidden door, hiding a staircase that leads downwards. Further down, away from the walls stained red.

Nero steps into the hole, takes the stairs and descends further, into the dark that quickly dissipates from the light emitted by the phantom that appears behind him. He should be glad of the light, or the shadows chased away, but Nero feels is the coldness from it, like ice sliding down his spine, digging into his bones, makes it hard to breath, hard to think. But Yamato is an incessant voice in his head, reminding him to take one step after another every five seconds, urging him, urging him-

Oh.

Oh.

There they are. Here, they are. The missing pieces of his soul, the parts and bits forcibly taken from him, chipped away from him, only to be stuffed into something else that is not him. Nero takes a deep, shuddering breath, the backs of his eyes burning, and he clutches at his chest, feeling overwhelmed, out of balance.

They're here, they're here, the pieces of his souls. The creatures holding them, keeping them alive, are all clamoring for his attention, screaming for him to kill them, kill them, kill them, kill them-

"I'm here, I'm here…" Nero whispers weakly, eyes swimming and head pounding, ears ringing with the cacophony of physical and mental noise, screaming, screaming, screaming, so much noise, too weak to hold up, too dizzy- "I'll kill you now, just wait a moment longer, p-please. I… I need a moment, just…"

The noise lowers, goes softer, the creatures hearing him, seeing him, realizes he's suffering just as much as them, equally in pain, equally defiled by the people in white. They're the same, Nero and these poor creatures, that they're not even worthy to be called human, undeserving of any rights, free to be toyed with, violated, killed.

All for the pleasure of these people in white. Nero's gut churns at the thought, head roiling with hate and confusion, the former emotion being fanned into a greater wildfire by Yamato's seductive voice. Nero takes a while to just breathe, try to clear his mind (a futile attempt) and get his bearing, Yamato clutched in his white knuckled grip, the phantom behind him looming over his kneeling form, casting a strong blue light around them.

When Nero feels he's a little bit better, just the slightest bit steadier than before, he lifts his head to look upon the creatures who that carry the pieces of his soul.

And he almost wish he didn't look at all.

They are twisted creatures, these carriers, so far changed that Nero doesn't even know what they originally were. Some are bird-like; with wings and beaks and talons, but their forms are unnatural, wrong, and these once-birds can no longer really be called as such, with the way they changed so much, so horribly.

And it wasn't just birds; dogs, lizards, snakes… animals that used to inhabit the island, but was entering a decline for the past few years, at a rapid rate. So this is where they've gone, in the hands of a madman, of a 'Church' that spoke of justice and mercy and what other lies they spouted, feeding the naïve and blind people of Fortuna.

How badly did the Order lie to them? Nero is afraid to learn of the truth. So scared.

Nero walked amongst the cages, looking at them in horror, in pity, in disgust, and they look back at him, look back at him with his own face. It was terrifying, a vision straight out of a nightmare, with the way some of these creatures have human limbs, human parts, his face, and really. How sick and twisted is the person who made these? Who thought of the idea to break his soul, and shove those bits into... Into this creatures?

Nero feels sick to his stomach.

This… basement, this spacious area, is filled with cages upon cages stacked upon one another, all holding these creatures, and no wonder Nero feels his soul ache, his very being in pain. He doesn't want to know how much did they take from his soul. How much did they break him just so they could bring these… these things to life.

He doesn't want to know.

A wail rings through the air, pained, furious, desperate, and Nero looks towards the direction from where it came from with wide eyes. Disbelief floods his whole body, because that voice…

That was his voice.

His feet moves before his brain can catch up, carrying him to where the wail came from. It was far from the rest of the other monsters, away from the rest of his copies, and the still rational part of his brain warns him that whatever is separated from the rest, is different, one of a kind, and he needs to be wary all the more.

But Yamato only urges him forward, more and more, until Nero finds the source-

It was a monster. There's no other word to describe this… this thing, but as a monster.

Oh it has the shape of a human, that much is true, but it… the comparison ends there.

It had his face, had his hair, his voice, his eyes… but everything else is wrong. Limbs twisted in ways it shouldn't be twisted, too many fingers, too many toes, too many teeth inside its mouth. Hair like snakes, moving, writhing, seemingly alive. Deep blue crystals that grow out of its body, the flesh around it red and inflamed and bleeding.

It's a disgusting sight, a nightmare straight from hell this creature holds the largest piece of his fragmented soul.

And it was crying for him.

Nero can only look at it in horror, frozen where he stand as the creature wails his name out, over and over, within the confines of its cage. It reaches out, with twisted hands, begging and begging.

"Kill me." It moans, anguished and clearly suffering. The hand around Yamato tightens, and Nero can feel himself shake. "Kill me please."

Nero's head explodes in a mess of noise, sending him screaming and dropping to the floor, clutching his head between bloodied hands. Yamato is screaming in his head, the souls scattered in these creatures is screaming in his head, and he is screaming too.

It was too much.

He can't think.

He wants it to end.

He wants himself whole.

He doesn't want to hurt anymore.

He wants the people who did this to pay.

With great difficulty, Nero picks up Yamato again, the katana singing (screaming) in his grasp.

Time to put an end to some things.

I hate this chapter the most.