Summary: Born into a wealthy yet dysfunctional family, the only thing stopping Voldo from leaving altogether is his determination to keep a promise. But when things go awry, Voldo is torn away from the life he has always known – and although it is a blessed means of escape in some respects, it does not come without its consequences. Vercci/Voldo.

I decided to write a pre-Soul Edge Voldo story because there aren't many on here, and sadly the ones that are haven't been completed, so I will do my very best to finish mine. Just one thing, though, updates may be slow for two reasons: 1) I will be working on multiple fics at the same time, and 2) over the next two years I'll be studying for my A Levels (for you non-Brits out there, these are the exams that decide whether or not I go to University). So, as you can probably guess, I need to put my schoolwork before my fanfiction. I'll still be writing, but chances are things are going to move slowly during term time and speed up over the holidays.

EDIT 15/6/2016: So, it's been nearly three years since I began this fic and not only have I now left school but I've completed my first year at university. Things will still move slowly but I haven't forgotten about this! Also, since beginning OSAS, more of Voldo's backstory has been revealed - i.e. that he was a sailor when he met Vercci. My 'theory' was completely different as you'll see if you read on, so to any new people reading this who want to tell me that my headcanon is wrong, don't bother: I know. ;)

*obligatory warning about how this story contains sex and dark themes and probably BDSM at some point, but then it's Voldo, what did you expect?*

And with that, enjoy! (I hope)

The tale of the legendary weapon Soul Edge, as told by Bosun William Bones at the Fairweather Inn:

'Know this; these whispered tales of a Sword that can cut the very heavens asunder are true! This Soul Edge exists! Many have tried to possess this legendary weapon but all have fallen to a horrible fate. Vercci, the Italian weapon merchant sought out the blade and you know of his grisly end! His agent, the pirate Cervantes de León was last said to possess the sword and has not been seen since! That blade is cursed as sure as I sit here! Be warned, ye are not the only one on this quest! Warriors from around the globe seek the blade for their own desires. For some, Soul Edge is their key to salvation; for others, their route to damnation. None will back down without a fight! Only the stout of heart and strong of arm can survive. Heed my warnings! They say to hold Soul Edge is to possess true power, but ye cannot hold onto it and your own soul at the same time…'

~o~

It was late.

The streets of Palermo were rid of the carriages that noisily cluttered the road by day. Now, an occasional horse-rider trotted past, the horse's hooves piercing the silence as they clattered on the cobbles. A beggar or two littered the roadside, no more than a shapeless mass sleeping beneath a variety of unwanted, stained rags, almost impossible to notice in the dark. Rats scampered about in the gutter, scavenging for whatever leftovers the people in the town had dropped on their travels that day. Palermo slumbered peacefully tonight, and every building was wrapped in a quilt of darkness as its inhabitants slept quietly.

All but one.

A large, well-kept villa stood at the edge of the city. The gardens surrounding it were elegant, with cascading fountains and marble statues depicting mythological deities lining the long, wide path that snaked its way through the grass and the ornamental plants to the gargantuan doors of the dwelling. Within the walls of the villa the atmosphere was loud and lively, and the air was filled with enthusiastic conversation, laughter and music as a banquet that had started hours ago continued well into the night.

A young man ran a hand through his blond, jaw-length hair, tucking it behind his ear for the umpteenth time that evening. Taking a sip from the goblet of wine in his hand, he overlooked the scene, his blue eyes taking in every detail. In one corner of the room musicians played loudly on the harpsichord and the viol and the lyre, fuelled by the large amount of alcohol they had consumed throughout the evening. Many of the tables had been pushed to the side of the large, ornately-furnished hall to make room for the men and women now dancing merrily, occasionally knocking over a jug of wine or a plate of food as they did so. The two hundred or so people present at the banquet cheered and clapped along to the beat of the music, making toast after toast to almost everything they saw, too drunk by now to care who – or, indeed what – they raised their drinks to.

'Voldo! Half the night has gone and I haven't been able to speak to you properly! How are you, cousin?'

Voldo looked up from his goblet, his dirty blond hair resuming its position in front of his face. He brushed it away impatiently, giving a small smile to the grinning, dark-haired man looking down at him.

'Flavio,' he replied, 'I am well, grazie, and you? This is quite a banquet, I have to say.'

Flavio pulled up a chair and sat beside Voldo. 'Hah, you know me,' he said, cheerfully, 'I find it extremely limiting when people stick to weddings, baptisms and religious holidays – I don't see why we can't celebrate just for the sake of it!'

Voldo eyed his cousin. Flavio Giordano, the wealthy apothecary who loved a party, and who seized the opportunity to throw one whenever possible, no matter what the circumstances.

'Indeed,' said Voldo, taking another sip of his drink before giving his cousin a cheeky smirk, 'now that I think about it, I'm rather surprised to see you're still sober enough to hold a conversation with me.'

'Pfft, I'm getting there, slowly,' replied Flavio, taking a swig from his own drink as if to prove his point, 'it seems as if everyone else has taken to the wine more than usual tonight – it's disappearing at a faster rate than normal. I may have a chance to drink some myself if it wasn't for the fact that I have to keep ordering the maid to fetch more. Still, let them drink, at least it keeps everyone in good spirits… say, is that your brother over there?' He paused before adding, 'and who's he kissing? Well, I say that – it looks like he's eating her face.'

He gestured to the other side of the room, and Voldo turned his gaze to where he was pointing. In the opposite corner of the banquet hall was his elder brother – that was to say, one of three – with a goblet in his hand and a girl on his lap.

Luciano. Slim, handsome, black-haired, blue eyed Luciano, with glass-cutting cheekbones and a love of pretty things and hair dye. Voldo watched him in disgust as he impatiently drained his goblet and flung it to the ground, proceeding then to thrust his hands down the front of the woman's bodice. She squealed and pulled him closer to her, claiming his lips enthusiastically with hers, her dark curls dancing at her back.

'It is,' replied Voldo grimly, 'and that's his bride-to-be, Giulia Martinelli.'

'Ah, so that's who his fiancée is…' Flavio commented with interest, setting down his goblet and picking at one of the many plates of food nearby, 'I've heard a bit about her… rumour has it she used to be a whore.'

Voldo looked at him. 'I doubt it,' he said back, 'my father would never let her marry into the family if that were the case.'

And yet father visits brothels all the time, the hypocrite, Voldo thought.

Flavio popped an olive in his mouth and chewed thoughtfully before spitting out the stone and remarking, 'does your brother really have to get so… into it with her? Here, of all places? I mean, there are beds upstairs if he wants – surely he could go snog her somewhere private?'

Voldo snorted. 'I assure you it's the alcohol that's having the effect on him. Usually he wouldn't get so rough – he'd be afraid of spoiling his hair,' he said viciously.

Flavio laughed. 'He really cares that much about his looks?'

'He doesn't give a damn about anything else.'

Ever the prima donna, Voldo added privately.

'If you've quite finished your japes, brother, I'd like a word with you,' came a disapproving voice behind them.

Voldo turned around, scowling. 'Aurelio, what do you want?'

Voldo looked up in annoyance at his eldest brother, taking in the all too familiar sight of his neatly cut brown hair and his dark, malevolent eyes.

'I'll leave you both to it, shall I?' said Flavio, 'see you, Voldo.'

Aurelio took Flavio's now-vacated seat.

'Francesco tells me you've been associating with the gypsies again,' Aurelio said.

Voldo rolled his eyes, making a mental note to throttle his other brother when he got the chance.

'Francesco is nothing more than a greedy, food-loving, sword-wielding oaf who should learn to keep his nose out of other people's business. So what if I have, what's it to you?' retorted Voldo defiantly, 'is it not for you to tell me who I can and can't talk to, brother. I am twenty years old; I can make my own decisions!'

'Oh, but it isn't just talking, now, is it? No, you seem to feel the need to visit them at the market, to trade with them. You would quite happily bring shame to the family by buying stolen goods from scum.'

Voldo looked at Aurelio incredulously. 'You dare talk to me about shaming the family?' He gestured to the people in the banquet hall. 'Take a good look around you, Aurelio! Take it all in, drink up the scene! There are people here who whore about, who have fathered children out of wedlock, there are thieves and rapists and liars in this very room – and you scold me for supposedly bringing shame to the family?! You're a bunch of hypocrites, all of you. You, Francesco, Luciano, and father, too. It seems as though Tore and I are the only two siblings with our minds still fully operational, as yours are all full of shit.'

Aurelio went red with anger. 'At least I know how to properly speak to my elders!' he said.

Voldo laughed. 'Is that the best you can come up with? You're my elder brother, nothing more. Get over yourself,' he spat.

Aurelio's fist curled. 'One day that smart mouth of yours will get you into a lot of trouble, and I can assure you I'm not going to be the one to help you out of it.'

Voldo looked his brother in the eye. 'What are you going to do, hit me, here, in front of everyone? Oh, silly me, of course not, because that would be shaming the family, wouldn't it? You don't want people to see how little control you have of your temper. You're turning into father – if he can even be called that.'

Aurelio's eyes narrowed but he said nothing. Standing up abruptly, he stormed off.

'And tell Francesco he can go fuck himself,' Voldo growled irritably after him, before downing the rest of his wine. He would go tell him himself if it wasn't for the fact that he was drunkenly sparring with an uncle out in the courtyard. With any luck he'd be fatally wounded and dead by tomorrow morning.

'Bringing shame to the family,' Voldo muttered, venomously. He thought of his three elder brothers and how much he despised them. Aurelio, Luciano and Francesco: the snob, the pretty-boy, and the glutton. Though, thankfully, Luciano was due to piss off out of the house and move in with Giulia soon. Then there'd be one less idiot to deal with, at least. As for Francesco, he claimed to have a girlfriend – a girlfriend who the family had yet to meet – but if there was a merciful god then he, too, would hurry up and marry her – if she even existed at all, that was. Francesco had always been fond of telling lies to make himself more appealing to others.

Then there was Aurelio. Aurelio, who had married and then already gone through a messy divorce at just twenty-four. Voldo would have felt sorry for him if he wasn't so annoyingly conceited. He seemed to think that he could order everyone around purely because he was the eldest – and though it was perfectly acceptable for Luciano and Francesco to ignore him, whenever Voldo and (though less often) Tore argued back Aurelio would be quick to anger.

Come to think of it, where is Tore? Voldo looked around the hall, trying to search for his younger brother among the haze of people. He had always been the shy, quiet one in the family next to his loud, boisterous siblings, and was no doubt trying to avoid social interaction, as he usually did.

Still, who can blame him? thought Voldo, and suddenly a new burst of annoyance and loathing at his elder brothers shot through him as he knew full well it was because of them that his little brother was so closed and reserved to most people. Peering around for the shoulder-length, brown hair and the skinny frame that was Tore's, he spotted his younger, sixteen-year-old sibling sitting in a corner, absent-mindedly picking at what remained of a roast goose. Voldo stood up with the intention of keeping him company when a loud, furious shriek stopped him in his tracks.

'How dare you?! That is my wife, Zio Rosario!'

Voldo snapped his head around towards the source of the commotion to find his Flavio wrestling a tanned, big-boned, terrifying-looking man. A shocked-looking woman with her blond hair and crimson bodice in a mess watched as the two men knocked a bench over in their eagerness to seemingly beat each other bloody.

It was not difficult to deduce what had happened. Oh, look, my dear father making himself look like an idiot again by drunkenly coming onto my cousin's wife, Voldo thought, why does that not surprise me?

The fight appeared to serve as a source of entertainment, however, and the dancers had scuttled off to the sides of the room leaving Flavio and Rosario Giordano in their place to battle it out, a circle of onlookers forming around them. Voldo noticed Tore watching anxiously among them. At some point they had both gotten hold of a sword, and it became unclear whether this was just angry sparring or if it had gone beyond that. As Voldo looked on, it was evident that Flavio had gotten tipsy but his father was full on drunk, and a few minutes later Flavio had easily beaten him, knocking his weapon out of his hand and pushing him roughly backwards. He stumbled and the crowd parted hurriedly in an attempt to dodge him, but he tripped over frightened-looking Tore and crashed ungracefully to the floor.

Rosario got up quickly and struck Tore in the face. 'Idiota,' he snarled, 'always in my way, you useless boy!'

A purple bruise now marked Tore's pale skin and, with a scared look at both his father and the people staring around him, he almost ran from the room, but not before hushed whispers from the onlookers began to invade the air.

Voldo looked on in disgust at what had just happened, watching as Flavio stalked furiously from the room. His father caught Voldo's eye and the two of them glared at each other before the elder Giordano looked away and helped himself to some food as the atmosphere began to buzz again.

I hope he chokes on it, thought Voldo and, with a last filthy look in his father's direction, Voldo exited the room.

He knew full well that that had not been the last of it. Tomorrow, surely, Tore would receive a proper beating. Or it could be later on tonight, in the early hours of the morning. It was not uncommon for Rosario to bring what few friends he had back to the house in the middle of the night and humiliate his youngest son, waking up the entire household in the process. Yet although it was clear that Aurelio, Luciano and Francesco did nothing to stop it, Voldo saw there was always a certain… discomfort in their eyes as they heard their father downstairs force Tore to entertain the 'guests' on the harpsichord, beating him if they did not like what he played. The only time Voldo could stand his brothers was when their conscience got the better of them during these episodes, and this was the only good that came from them.

It was not difficult to find his younger brother and, after a few minutes of searching, Voldo found him at the end of one of the house's long halls, staring at his reflection in an ornate, full-length mirror and tentatively touching the ugly mark on his cheek.

'It'll go down in a few days,' said Voldo gently, coming up behind him, 'I'm sure Luciano will have some makeup to cover it with until then.'

'Luciano hates me, just like Francesco and Aurelio,' Tore replied, his large, blue eyes meeting Voldo's ones in the mirror, 'what makes you think he'd lend me his powder, or whatever it is that he slaps on every day…?'

'I'll take care of it, don't worry.'

Tore turned around. 'Father's right. I am useless. I've made matters worse my entire life. It was only the other day that Aurelio reminded me yet again about how it's my fault mother –'

'Aurelio is just a conceited prat who can't keep a relationship for more than five seconds. He'll be gone by the end of this year, you wait and see. I think even father's getting tired of him being still single, he wants to marry him off.'

At least that's one thing father and I agree on, Voldo thought privately.

Tore stared at him. 'What happens when all of you go? Aurelio, Luciano, Francesco, and then you. When all of you get married and move on with your lives? I'll still be stuck with father.'

Voldo snorted. 'You won't be – he'll have drunk himself to death by then, if there's a god.'

'I'm being serious. At least the four of you have something going for you. Aurelio has the brains, Luciano has his looks, Francesco's good with a sword, and you have your –'

'Attitude?' Voldo cut in with a small smirk.

Tore shrugged. 'Well I was going to say your wit, but, yeah, that too.' He returned the smile.

'You play the harpsichord and you're great at it!' said Voldo.

'Yes, and father hates it. Says it's too noisy, and that the world has too many musicians already, most of whom are talentless. The only time he enjoys my playing is when he is drunk.'

'Pfft, what does father know?'

Tore stared at the floor glumly.

'Come here,' said Voldo, pulling his brother into an embrace, 'listen to me. The other members of our so-called 'family' may be a bunch of self-obsessed stronzi, but I did say I'd always be there for you, right from day one – and that hasn't changed. That's what elder brothers are for, right? Though I know ours aren't doing a very good job of that…'

'I know…' Tore pulled away and looked at his elder brother. 'Grazie, Voldo…'

Tore fiddled with his nails. 'I hate it here,' he murmured.

'I'm not too fond of it myself. Shall we go? At least we'll have the house to ourselves for a while.'

Tore nodded, and ten minutes later the two of them were on horseback making their way back home. With any luck their father would not come back until the next morning, if at all.

Perhaps then Tore will sleep easily tonight, Voldo thought.

How was that? Reviews gratefully appreciated :)

Giordano brothers' ages just to clarify:

Aurelio - 24
Luciano - 23
Francesco - 21
Voldo - 20
Salvatore (Tore) - 16