"It's nothing. I think… demons aren't supposed to have emotions."
They were not, for instance, supposed to feel their heart clench in their chest. Demons were not supposed to feel their breath stop in their throat and nausea well up through them. Their vision was not supposed to blur and it was not supposed to feel like their legs were stone.
But his did.
"Then what is it?"
"I… don't know…"
But he did.
He knew, because he knew her face. Her anguished face, tortured and riddled with pain. How long had it been since he saw it last? Before his current name; before he became a demon at all. The last time he'd seen her, she'd looked anguished, too – screaming at him to stay with her, that no future was worth parting ways.
This was not the future he'd wanted for her, either. She was supposed to live, to thrive, to flourish in his absence. If he went … if he let himself become a demon, then they would have a better world, wouldn't they? Or at least, she would. She would have a world worth living in, that was what it was for.
That was what older siblings did: they protected their younger siblings. The whole point of agreeing was to protect her, and now she was…
How could this be protecting her?
It might not even be her. Certainly looked like her, with the same anguished expression, but it had been so long that… how could he trust his memories anymore? How could he trust them when he'd spent the better part of them away from her?
They were leaving. Yu was turning away and they were talking about saving Bathory. He was peripherally aware of the discussion, the plan to go back to his mansion or some such nonsense, but he… wasn't listening to anything but the sound of her screaming. It resounded, echoed in his mind, a bittersweet torture that made his skin crawl. He hadn't felt anything this strong in… how long? He couldn't remember. Centuries at least.
Family…
How he'd laughed at Yu for his insistence on protecting his. How funny and annoying he'd found it, in the face of promises like revenge and actual results. And now he was –
Was this weakness? Her screams resounded in his head. It might not even be her. It couldn't be her. She was long gone, he was long gone, Ashera Tepes had died at Asuramaru's hands long, long ago – it couldn't be her.
But it was, wasn't it? Left to scream, to suffer, and he was powerless to do anything about it. But Yu… Yu wanted to save her, didn't he? Yu wanted to help her and Bathory both and maybe –
No, it was stupid. Thoughts like that were stupid.
He was a demon, after all, and demons didn't have emotions.
