Title: War
Fandom: Diabolo
Characters: Rai centric, Ren
Notes: Um...SPOILERS for...through at least part of volume two of the series, I guess. Second person POV.


You watch him sleeping beside you, once again outside in the cold on a dirty old park bench. He never seems to mind all that much though, only complaining every once in awhile and even that usually only being because he's worried about you. You smile affectionately as you think about that, reaching out a hand and almost running it through his short hair.

Instead you stop just before touching him, pausing for a moment before recoiling. You've been having such strange thoughts lately; thoughts and feelings that are beginning to scare you. You're worried that if you touch him, they will hurt him, too. Or that you will hurt him.

You look away from his peaceful form, staring up at the clear sky, empty save for the shining moon and twinkling stars. It is beautiful, you think.

You want to destroy it.

Biting your tongue to make sure you don't let out the sudden gasp of pain - both mental and physical - that threatens to escape you, you crouch over in your seat and hold your head in your hands. The thoughts are swarming you again, making you clench your fists so tightly it hurts, so tightly they start to make little pin prick marks on the skin of your palms. But that pain is good; it is an anchor to reality. Whatever is happening to you, going on in your head, it cannot be real. You would never want to do all of those horrible things.

Like find and torture and kill and chop them into little tiny pieces over and over until the walls are splattered with red, red blood and they don't even resemble once living things and--

"Rai?"

You jump, and in one swift move you turn and shoot out your hand, pure instinct taking over as you both defend and attack whatever has suddenly appeared.

The figure goes deathly still, and then hits your hand away. "Woah! Geez, Rai, I didn't mean to startle you but you don't have to attack me!" Ren exclaims, looking betrayed.

You drop your hand back down to your side, looking away from him. "Ah, no, sorry about that. I didn't know you had woken up."

He ignores that, and leans forward to get a better view of your face, looking at you quizzically. "Hey, are you okay?"

There is only a slight pause before you straighten up against the hard back of the bench again, smiling disarmingly and answering, "Yeah, I'm fine, Ren. Go back to sleep, I think I can too now."

He looks at you suspiciously, and you smile inwardly at how well he knows you, to not believe such a lie. But he backs off for now, though you know he will probably question you again later. "Alright. Night, Rai."

You close your eyes, pretending like you actually mean to go to sleep. How can you sleep when your dreams are plagued with images of carnage, and Ren's body is often among the countless others?

"Night, Ren."

And as you wait for him to drift off, your mind is once again possessed, the war resuming between the side of doing what is right and doing what must be wrong, between wanting to help people and wanting to hurt them. And for the first time, you wonder which one is truly you.

And there's blood on the wall from the headless body and scattered all over the floor from the slaughtered others along with a lone bloody finger and someone hurt and crying your name and an unending echo of laughter as you disappear into the eternal night.