AN: Written for Noct Whump Week 2018 on Tumblr. Day 2: "Corruption"
Shout out to darlings Elillierose and DragonRiderSayomi for beta reading.
Also, I have a few things I want to say. First of all, as you may have noticed, I've changed my name from istoleyourcheesecake. I'm now going under markofthemoros on FFnet, A03 as well as Tumblr. Stop by to say hi or spam me with stuff.
Then, for those of you who're also reading Leviathan's Fin. I know it's been two months since I last posted on that, but I promise Fin hasn't been discontinued. It's on a hiatus since I'm obsessing over writing a Prompto whump on A03, called All the King's Men if anyone is interested in checking that out. But ATKM is the reason why I haven't been active here at all, it's the reason why the winds in the sails of the Siren have calmed and the whole thing is at a standstill. I'm having way too much fun with that it's illegal and someone should stop me! (They aren't stopping me!)
Now, onto this mayhem! PLEASE NOTE THE WARNINGS ON THE SUMMARY IF YOU'RE SQUEAMISH THIS STORY IS SUPER DARK AND WILL DRAG ME TO HELL
RECKONING
Something is wrong. Gladio knows it the second he sees him descending the citadel stairs. The man's step is calm, but there's something about the way he holds himself, just a little too straight, with a little too long of a stride. Noctis looks at them, but the vacant look on his face is foreign to the solemnity and presence he is used to seeing there. It's still dark outside.
Something is wrong. All the alarm bells go off in his head when Prompto staggers closer, uttering the king's name in a confused question. Noctis's hand rises to his side, the swirl of magic that becomes his blade just that much different.
Darker. Tainted.
Something is seriously, horribly wrong.
With a low hiss of exertion, Noctis charges at his retainers.
Prompto isn't ready. Metal clatters to the rain-soaked ground. The name dies on the gunner's lips, twisted by the raw disbelief spreading across his features as his gaze slowly lowers to look at his abdomen, at the dark blade disappearing from view where it pierces him through. A new color enters his vision. A deep crimson, that of his life force, seeping out of him along the edge of the relentless metal.
He doesn't look pained. He doesn't try to fight it. Slowly, Prompto's eyes rise back up to look at the man that matters to him the most. It's not the wound. It's not the taste of tang and copper that's rising onto his tongue. Prompto's heart breaks at the ignorance in the midnight eyes as Noctis looks right through him. "...Noct?"
Noctis tears the blade out in one swift motion. He never bats an eye as Prompto falls to his knees in front of him, the stain on his uniform spreading rapidly. Prompto's hands hang limply at his sides, the guns lie on the ground, now useless and abandoned. His jaw hangs open as the reality of this begins to crush him. Noctis flings the blood from his blade in a wide arc, the crimson splaying the stone before he shoves the fading blond out of his way. Noctis doesn't look back as Prompto crumbles to the ground with a choked-up sigh.
And Ignis...
Oh poor Ignis.
At least he doesn't need to see it. To witness how Noct doesn't recognize him. How he looks at Ignis like he's just another existence to end. Not his oldest friend. Not a brother. Not anything. Just a husk that will wither through his blade.
Never before has Ignis thought his injury to be a blessing.
And yet, in some fucked-up way, Ignis still manages to see justice in his demise. He hears the approaching footsteps, feels the movement of air as the weapon travels through it in a wide swing. He could still block it if he wanted to, he could dodge. He doesn't. If the man that is his everything goes down, at least he can be content with that it is by his hand that so does Ignis.
It doesn't stop the intermittent cry from tearing out of him as Noctis carves his chest open. The scraping scream quickly turns wet, shudders before it dies altogether.
Gladio fights him. He does a decent job despite the shock of it being too much. Instincts take over, the years of training manifesting in a block after block as his mind quiets down, leaving behind only the causality of action and reaction. In the corner of his eye Gladio sees that Prompto isn't moving. That the shadows around the yard are growing longer.
He tries to stop it. He tries to snap him out of it.
He tries not to panic as he realizes he can't win this.
Despite everything he has witnessed, despite every fiber in his body screaming at him to fight, Gladio knows that under absolutely no circumstance can he harm Noct.
That if not in mind, at least in body, this is still his king.
Gladio hears Ignis's death rattles. He tries not to think about why Ignis is making those sounds - those stomach-turning rasps no man ever should. Tries not to break at the thought of who ...
Noctis raises his sword. Those pools of blackest abyss directed at him are void of awareness and restriction and life itself as the man flings his blade forward. Gladio's eyes widen with the understanding of what's coming, his gasp like a shout in the morbid silence of the courtyard.
He wouldn't have to bother with blocking this time.
All he has time to think about is that Noct has finally mastered the move they have practiced for years.
Gladio collapses onto his side with an ungraceful thud when Noctis cleaves his head clean off.
It's sickening, the way his head swirls. Carousels to the left in a dizzying spiral as if he was drunk. Churns of nausea pool in his gut and he gags, the bitter taste rising onto his tongue but he manages to push it down. On his knees, Noctis hangs his head as he waits for the vertigo to pass. His body aches, the remnants of magic still coursing through him. The stone is wet and cold beneath his hands and knees, the chill seeping up his arms and into his bones. With a miserable groan, Noctis cracks his eyes open.
The world is swimming in currents of shadow and shape. Everything is hazy, dreamlike, but there's color. Just one color. Red. So much red.
There is a dry sensation on his face. Fingers rise to touch the crusting on his cheek. Noctis scratches it, and flakes get under his nails and stick onto his skin. He looks at the pinpricks of dried blood as if unsure what it is. There's so much of it. On his hands and his clothes. It's all over him. How can there be this much?
Whose?
In the back of his mind, a small voice is nagging at him to remember. He's forgetting something. Something important. He blinks, trying to coax his eyes to work with him. Eventually the world sharpens up, the shapes gaining form and outline as the palace courtyard is painted before him in excruciating detail.
There...there's a person. Lying on the ground. As if through a nightmare, Noctis recognizes the blond hair, the slender figure. The boy he had watched to brave his fears, the man who has known darkness longer than he has known Noct but has waited for him still. He makes a strangled sound as his throat clenches around the name that tries to get out.
Why is Prompto lying on the ground?
Why is there so much blood?!
No...oh gods, no!
Noctis scrambles to get onto his feet, but his limbs don't obey him. He slumps back to the cold, hard stone in a heap, his hands scraping against the surface. He hisses sharply at the sting.
Prompto's face flashes before him. The sky eyes clouded with sorrow and disbelief, blood streaking from the corner of his mouth, down the gracefully angled jawline as the blond looks at-
'...Noct?'
The flash is gone, and Noctis surges forward as if to chase after it. Desperate fingers grip the onyx hair, a sad attempt to anchor himself onto something as he shakes, his breaths growing shuddery with the clawing fear .
There's the whisker of magic, like crackles of electricity. Vaguely, his hand remembers the grip of the blade, his fingers twitching at the tremors traveling along the handle as he thrusts it into-
Noctis's eyes widen as his breath catches. No. No, that's not possible! He'd never-
Dear gods, no …!
He pulls at his hair as if trying to snap himself awake from this phantasmagoria splayed before him like a living nightmare. Gasping rapidly, his chest is caving in at the pool of blood spreading around his friend.
Prompto isn't moving, oh gods he isn't moving -!
He turns his eyes a little to the left, and it's like dozens of insects were running up and down his throat as the heart-wrenching wail builds up there. Even from this far, he can tell it's Gladio. Even from this far he can see the bone where his head was severed.
The piercing, broken sound that was strangling him is finally let out. Noctis's eyes slide closed as he lets his head drop and screams .
He screams his throat sore. He screams even after that. In his mind, all he sees is red. Red, and the loss filling Prompto's eyes as they beg to be mistaken. That it wasn't true. That it wasn't Noct who-
Oh please let this be a dream! A horrible, horrible dream…!
It isn't. In the eerie stillness of the courtyard, the king of light becomes nothing at all as the world is slowly covered in crimson.
His voice has faded, now nothing but raspy, wet rattles. His fingers have gone pale from the cold, but he can't feel it. Strands of hair stick to his tear-stained cheeks. His eyes are on the ground but he's looking at nothing.
It takes a moment for the clatter of heels on the concrete to register. He begins to shake violently as the steps come closer. So hauntingly slow, to torturously deliberate.
Why couldn't he do it? Why couldn't he end this when he was destined to?
He fought so hard, really gave it his all.
It just wasn't enough.
The claps aren't exactly slow, nor are they excited, but each one like a dagger. The devilish smile curling Ardyn Izunia's lips freezes the blood in his veins as the man hollers, "Bravo! Bravo. What a show. As expected from the Crystal's Chosen."
Paralyzed with the shock, the disbelief, Noctis stares at the ground, wide-eyed and lip trembling, even when the demon wearing the man's guise comes to stand next to him. Fearing and anticipating the moment the man would reach out for him, he makes a miserable sound in the back of his throat, like that of a tree struck by lightning. He winces, a fresh streak of tears sliding down his cheek as Izunia gently yet firmly forces him to meet his eyes.
The immortal looks at him like a prize possession, and Noctis wants to jerk away from that foul touch but he can't. Can't because this accursed man's presence fills him with unbearable fear of death, and although he had thought he had accepted death when he came here, this is nothing like it and Noctis feels himself disappearing into the abyss of those ambers, two pools of liquid hellfire that're smoldering his soul.
As if reading the unvoiced question from the moist, wavering orbs, Izunia's expression fades. His face unreadable, voice void of glee or mockery, he states softly, "You want to ask 'why', don't you?" All the answer Noctis manages is a choked-up gasp. His eyes swift wildly from amber to amber, but he cannot avert his gaze.
Ardyn's face hardens, the illusion of softness swept away as he declares with all the vengeance of a wronged man, "Because in their sacred eminence , the Astrals underestimated my wrath."
The malice is back, Izunia's smile cold as he sneers, "Sending children to fight their wars…and what a better way to commemorate this happy reunion than to let them meet their precious Chosen again. In all his ascended glory!" There's something dangerous in the way he looks at him. "Worry not, child of light. It'll all be over soon." As Ardyn watches, the midnight eyes glaze over, the shine in them dimming as the darkness of the world becomes the darkness of the heart, and Noctis stops trembling.
And Ardyn Izunia smiles the smile of a man who's about to achieve everything he has dreamt of for eons, "Yes. Come, Noct. We've got a date to keep with the universe."
And Noctis doesn't say a word, never bats an eye as he pushes himself onto his feet. He turns around and starts off, darkness swirling in to become his weapon in the extended arm. He doesn't glance down as he crushes a pair of sunglasses under his boot.
Behind him, the king chuckles to himself gleefully before he throws a scarf around his neck, and saunders after him.