Author's Notes:
Lloyd: Wait… what? Where… where am I? Colette? Genis? Where is everyone? I... I thought… I know Genis was right there!
…oh no… I'm in a fanfiction aren't I?
Me: Well… Damien's on break so….
Lloyd: I'm your muse?! NO! This has happened way too many times! Why couldn't you take Kratos?!
Me: That wouldn't make any sense. This is his PoV. Besides, aren't you interested in what your father was thinking during the Kvar incident?
Lloyd: No. I don't even want to hear Kvar's filthy name. Why the hell did Namco make such a bastard of a character anyway? (growls)
Me: Oh… well…
Lloyd: Damn. This entire fic is about Kvar isn't it?
Me: Uh… that and a lot of fiery, fun-to-read drama! :)
Lloyd: (groans) Lue doesn't own anything.
Key:
Default: Kratos' point of view, past tense
Italics: used for first person present thoughts; exaggerated emphasis; flashbacks
Bold: extreme emotion, severity, and significance
-- (double dash): Disembodied voice
Underlined: Additional emphasis
Central alignment: Additional significance
--
"You cannot truly love and hate simultaneously, for love distracts from hate and hate distracts from love. If you wish to love, protect your love, before you demand a vengeance derived from hate."
Desire
Kratos' PoV
"Damn! We're surrounded," Lloyd hissed as several more desians arrived behind Kvar. Unlike Lloyd, I could not differentiate between the opposites; surrounded or not, I was just as captive within the suffocating bounds of these walls. I was totally ignorant of the change, even as Lloyd proclaimed its apparentness. I'd been surrounded the moment I set foot in this god-forsaken ranch.
"Lloyd, that exsphere was to be an offering to Lord Yggdrasill," Kvar's voice sizzled icily, eyes gleaming with impatience, "It's about time you gave it back—"
That glare in which the exsphere was reflected… that ostentatious gleam I'd seen moments before Anna was torn from her exsphere. Yes, I was familiar with it.
My eyes narrowed with annoyance and my foot chugged subtly forward at the thought of Kvar even touching that confounded device. He responded with a haughty, careless glower in my direction.
He really knew how to really get under my skin…
"Yggdrasill… I understand that is the name of your leader," Raine pried thoughtfully.
"Yes…" he growled so lowly he seemed to purr with dissembled hatred, "and now, in the name of our great leader, and for the sake of my own success, I need that exsphere!" he hissed, heedlessly starting forward. The sound of his foot colliding with the glassy floor was immediately followed by my own. We'd simultaneously started and abruptly halted in tense stalemate.
I could feel the hatred fueling in my eyes; I could touch the fire proliferating between our exchange of glare. Blood was boiling in my veins, from the inmost regions of my heart to the tensing tips of my fingers hovering over my blade. It was in times like these when the flamberge became my right hand.
"Again?" Lloyd asked incredulously, "You should have figured it out by now, I won't let you take this from me!"
"Take it from you? The irony in this is quite amusing," he smirked, sadistic malice and pleasure replacing his earlier impatience.
Irony? Suspicion flickered in my red-hued eyes. I suggest you keep your mouth shut before you say something I won't be able to ignore.
"Was it not you who stole that exsphere from me in the first place?" he asked with his sickeningly amused voice.
Stole it for you!? You actually have the audacity to say that to my face?! You dare tell me I am the criminal? My eyes widened and I started forward again before catching myself.
You slimy, despicable, foul, wicked, vile insect…. I restrained a growl, clenching my teeth over the venomous words waiting in my mouth.
"What are you talking about?" Lloyd demanded.
Kvar now entirely abandoned his prior spite, an interested, humored smirk curling evilly on his lips. "That exsphere was stolen by subject A-012," he said humorously, feeling no need to direct his gaze toward me to see the effect of his poison.
"A human named 'Anna'."
My breath felt like it was rising from my reach, like I was sinking, submerged in some unbreatheable fluid.
That name… 'Anna'… it was worse than a bullet….
"Subject A-012 escaped with that still in her body," he reasoned as he eyed my shocked expression interestedly, "In other words, that filthy female host body stole it from me," his evilly subtle smirk unchanging, eyes flickering and narrowing with malicious pleasure.
Lloyd lurched slightly backward, pupils dilating, breath shuddering in a swift, unprepared inhale. My eyes were wide with shock, narrow pupils wavering in stunning and sudden, sharp pain. Why was he blabbing about this…? Out of all the ridiculous world-domination strategies he had, of all the promotion fantasies he conceived… why did he select this?
"Of course," he fleered humorously, "she paid for her crime with her life," His conceited gaze laughed as he glanced my way. I found I couldn't retort. I was completely paralyzed at the moment, head to toe. I hadn't been expecting this at all.
His wicked smirk curled into a full-fledged grin filled with twisted fascination as his eyes returned to Lloyd. His eyebrows dove together with pure satisfaction as Lloyd's grip on his blades shivered with anger.
No…
I understood now…. What he was doing…. He was turning Lloyd against me.
It made wonder why I hadn't killed him during the past decade.
"It was you…" he whispered in a whetted, deathly low growl. His exsphere began to glow radiant blue in hue.
No…
I was falling at an accelerating rate mentally, physically… it was very hard to distinguish between the two. But in one way or another, I knew I was falling at a constantly doubling speed that was flipping my stomach around like a pancake. I was blindly grabbing for something to hold onto to make the endless chaos stop. Time began to speed forward and soon I was left in its dust.
"You…" he staggered in his wet tone, a shadow falling over his eyes, his mouth transforming into a frightening contortion, "You—!! You killed my mother?!" he gasped in a beastly roar, "YOU?!"
No, No, No!
I lifted a weak, exhausted gaze towards the party, unsure as to whether I was actually shaking my head or not. When my eyes finally grasped a point of reference, my world stopped spinning. I could see the party, I could see Lloyd, and I could see Kvar.
Genis was taken aback, Colette saddened, Raine stunned, even Sheena was shaken by what they perceived was the truth.
But it wasn't. And Kvar was enjoying that fact.
Kvar looked at Lloyd in helpless fascination, then turned his gaze to me, smirking helplessly, victim to some incomprehensible humor I would never understand. My dismay vanished entirely as I inhaled this new toxin.
No… no, Lloyd…. I closed my eyes, a shadow cascading over my eyes. No.
Kvar's malicious grin was brimming with unsettled laughter at my reaction.
I exhaled. It felt like the contents of my even physical self had been drained. A sensation similar to the tortuous, slitting penetration of Anna's claws slicing through my void chest returned to me.
"Now, now…" he purred, absolutely ecstatic that he had finally breached the stolid façade I'd constructed and fortified until it was virtually infallible, "don't blame me."
I blame you.
"The person who killed Anna," he began, cruel trill flickering in his dark, blood-colored orbs, "wasn't me."
I held my sword with a grasp that nearly broke the hilt, in some effort to deter the pain.
Lloyd stifled a hissed exhale through the clench of his teeth, his bottomless, intense glare unflinching.
What drew my glower from the depths of my brow's umbra was his tone. It wasn't final. It was still and pensive. It was waiting. He planned to continue.
His attention was entirely directed at Lloyd.
"Your father killed her."
My hand slipped from my sword swiftly and easily with the sudden shock. I exhaled, heat slivering through my teeth.
It was like there never was discrimination. It was like there was never injustice. It was like there was never abhorrence, or agony, or betrayal, or good and evil. It was like the God above us had never raised his hand to impound us to this hellish land.
All these things I thought I couldn't hate more were fading like a lighted wick in sunlight. With each pound of my heart, they gently slipped from my knowledge, vanishing entirely from existence.
Their magnitude, in relation to what I felt now… was infinitesimal.
Indigestible anger coursed through me, my gaze turning into a venomous, fiery glare. Unbridled hatred crawled spasmodically through my veins, causing my hand to tremble convulsively above the grip of my blade. My jaw clenched and the taste of blood permeating my mouth.
Lloyd's eyes widened with deep and fearful discredit. He retreated a pace, stunned, unbelieving, and wide-eyed.
"Once an exsphere is attached to a body, it cannot be removed. If it is," he continued, voice strong with renewed fascination, "it will slowly devour the wielder."
I slowly, tensely placed my hand around my blade, strangling the poor, undeserving hilt. I closed my eyes, breathing constantly, bridling the rage surging beneath my skin.
"That was when your father--"
"LIES!!" Lloyd screeched in some beastly, desperate voice, foreign even to himself. He panted weakly, exasperated and exhausted with the cardinal's torture. He wavered from leg to leg faintly, eyes lost, distant, dazed and stunned with agony.
I gritted my teeth, my eyebrows furrowing. Could Fate truly find pleasure in this duplicity? Was it entertaining to provide me with the temptation of a blade before a man made to be sent to hell, and then drill my feet to the floor? Was there some humor God was laughing at in this?
"Lies…" Lloyd staggered, "those have to be lies!!" He started forward, swords loosely grasped in his hands.
My reflective eyes widened with surprise. Did he not see the theoretically undefeatable amount of desians behind Kvar? Did he not see Kvar? Before he'd manage even a scratch on Kvar, he'd receive about twenty stabs in the gut.
Five desians advanced in response before Lloyd was anywhere near Kvar.
The idiocy…! I roared furiously in my head. Was the boy so intent on getting killed!?
I launched forward at speed barely slow enough to be considered humanly possible, which I do admit, should have been more controlled. Based on his expression, Lloyd undoubtfully thought I'd vanished and rematerialized before his eyes.
With a potent slash of blue, demonic mana and an aggressive aid of temporary wind, I forced all five backwards, leaving a critical gash on each in one circuitous motion. Blood trailed in the air and drizzled from my blade, eventually dripping to the floor.
Within the few minutes all the desians were recovering, I raised my blade mercilessly toward Kvar, my exsphere glistening furiously. Kvar crocked his eyebrow inquisitively, asking if I was mentally stable at the moment. …Which I wasn't.
I clenched my jaw, stagnantly lowering my sword.
I felt like I'd just downed fire. If there was anything possible that I wanted, it was to destroy Kvar, to satiate the last clinging desire that set my heart apart from the average piece of charred obsidian. That necessary vengeance… I was so close...
The frustration I felt there… the heat in my breath, the glare in my eyes, the hatred rolling off my presence… surely Lloyd had detected it.
Damn… I hope my wings aren't out….
My eyes widened with indignation as Kvar began to laugh. He was standing, inches from my blade, the majority of his henchmen down, laughing at me. Really, this man was begging for death.
"Lies? No. Not at all, Lloyd. In fact, upon tearing the exsphere from its host, one of mankind's greatest truths are revealed. All those who bear human blood are monsters. That is why your father found such ease in killing your mother. That is why your mother nearly killed you. You are all a breed of worthless, mindless, pathetic vermin."
So the demon calls the angel 'Vermin'? Is that because you truly believe it or because the beautiful name that belongs to her cannot be uttered by such a slanderous creature? My eyes asked him bitterly, glittering with repugnance.
I was deluged with disgust. Not one memory of her had slipped from my mind; I still remembered, vividly, everything about her. And all he'd called her now, I received just as furiously as I would have had she been right by my side – more even.
And my ears would not tolerate another word of it.
"Do not speak ill of the dead."
I nearly snarled, voice venomously silken, comprised of a texture as cold and smooth as liquid nitrogen.
Kvar chuckled, delighted, "Why not? Monsters die because they are ill, because they are a disfigured, wicked breed. Your parents were a fraction of this ill breed, another pollutant in need of extermination," he said carelessly to Lloyd.
"You…" I breathed silently, heat seeping from my lips, the taste of blood foul in my mouth.
"Don't ever talk about my parents like that!!" Lloyd hissed rancorously, exploding into a forward, air-splitting sprint.
"Things… change… in seconds… you forget what… must always remember…Love."
No you don't—I took a step to my side, raising my hand so that it collided with Lloyd's swords, keeping my blade low but ready. I hated the feel of his swords as they crept into me. Or rather, I hated the fact that they weren't creeping into Kvar. This was becoming one hell of a convoluted scene….
'What?!' Lloyd's dark, penetrating eyes demanded. 'What the hell do you think you're doing?! You can't stop me from defending someone I love!'
Huh… funny… I remember those eyes from somewhere….
'Do you actually think it's your place to interfere?!' He repeated venomously.
My responsive gaze was coolly serene yet fiery in its affirmative.
Love may be the most powerful thing this world knows, but yours is too easily outmatched by someone else's.
'I'll kill you! I'll kill you if you stand in my way!!' his eyes visibly darkened with anger as he fruitlessly struggled forward.
Before Lloyd could even realize he was cutting through my hand, the desians had recovered from my assault and were prepared to counter.
I heard Sheena shuffle and managed a sidelong glace at her. She'd drawn a guardian card, a perfect route of escape, from her kimono.
"I'll handle this," Sheena stated firmly, "I'm gonna use the last one Grampa."
The card activated, rising from her hold and glowing with energy.
I closed eyes as Lloyd's swords met the bone constructing my hand, my breath growing composedly even. Only a few more seconds to endure this… hah… it seems only fitting that Fate would make these moments seem eternal….
It felt like we'd been standing on a desiccated river bed, and a dam ten paces upstream, restraining a enormous amount of water, had just collapsed. The mana exploded behind us, brilliant rivulets of incandescent light scattering, wind slivering through every stray crease of clothing, every tendril of hair.
--They disappeared!
--Your orders, sir?
-- …Let them go. This won't be the last we see of them. They plan to return. And at that overdue time, I will finally be able to reclaim what was stolen from me by that
Filthy
Female
Host body.
"Kratos!" She tugged on my arm, with quite a bit of strength. It was a tragic site as I, a four-thousand year old seraph, stumbled backwards, struggling against that little girl's pull.
"I'm not leaving until that man is drenched in blood," I hissed viciously, staggering forward.
"He is drenched in blood! Your blood! He completely slaughtered you! Look at yourself!" Anna retorted, tightening her hands around my wrist. Even as she urged me, I refused to realize I was absolutely smothered in crimson.
"That was entirely your fault! Instead of running, you waited for me, and I had to fight protecting you! It's your fault I'm like this!" A sliver of pain and hoarseness could be detected in my voice, however much I tried to conceal it.
"I wasn't going to leave you surrounded by eighty desians!" She told me, exasperated.
"It would have been much easier if you had," I seethed, ignoring the disgusting amount of blood in my mouth.
"It would have been much easier if you had just let me heal you, instead of pulling that ridiculously arrogant act back there," she scolded me, like I was some disobedient child.
"Heal me then, if you're so persistent!" I finally turned around to face her, eye to eye.
She subtly cringed at the vehement intensity swirling in my eyes and responded softly, "you'll go back there if I heal you, and I won't be able to stop you."
"Why would you need to stop me?! It would be a pointless, futile effort!"
"Because I love you," she stated firmly, "no matter how idiotic you're being. And I'd choose your life over Kvar's death in any circumstance."
"That's your decision. Mine happens to be quite different," I snapped bitterly.
"Won't you listen to me at all?"
Her voice hovered in the air, uncharacteristically dispirited. For the first time in while now, I began to think. Her tone triggered a sense of perception in me, towards not only my blinding feelings, but hers. She was hurt wasn't she?
"…Kvar probably has the whole ranch searching for us now. That's not eighty desians; that's eight hundred desians. I don't think you're weak, Kratos, at all. But an army against one man?"
I closed my eyes, clenching my jaw, struggling with my temper. She was using logic, simple, clean, crystal-clear logic.
Something I was clearly loathed at the moment.
Logically, I would be dead right now from blood loss, logically an angel couldn't fall in love, logically Anna should have been robbed of her heart and soul due to her exsphere months ago, logically, logically, logically. What good was logic in a world of mana and magic?
Her desperate grasp on me had become a soft, treasured hold, no longer holding me captive. I reopened my eyes, meeting her heartbroken gaze. Those tormented eyes nearly dowsed my hate at first glance.
I stared at her, at the look in her eyes, at the way she tenderly embraced that burgundy hand, holding it to her cheek, lacing her fingers in the gaps between the fabric-covered digits. It felt like that was no longer my hand.
I felt such disorientation then. I felt like I'd lost possession over my entire body, save for my eyes. I saw, from the view of a set of isolated eyes, how much she adored that torn hand. And then I remembered the careless angle I'd positioned my sword at minutes ago, that had allowed Kvar's staff to firmly collide with it. Out of my blind hatred I'd wounded something she loved. And now I was ignoring her pleas, in route to return to the ranch and utilize it until it was lifeless on the floor, bleeding to death with me.
"I really need to heal you, don't I?" she stated more than asked, coming closer to me, trying to find my eyes under my bangs, "You're so unstable. …huh? Ack-! Kratos!!"
"Wh…" Before I could ask why she'd screamed my name, I realized I was falling. It was strange though… how I never seemed to hit the ground…. Finally, a silken, fluid mana rushed into my veins, from Anna I presumed. I opened my eyes, not recalling when I closed them, finding myself looking up at Anna rather than down. She was kneeling beside me, glaring of course.
"And that's why I won't let you go back, Mr. Calm, Cool, and Collected," she snapped at me. I exhaled, blowing a tuff of my bangs upward.
Defeated. By a little ten-year-old girl! Or twenty! Thirty! However damn old she was. I didn't have the patience to recall such a miniscule number.
"Damn it, Anna…" I was annoyed. And in denial. I had NOT just fallen unconscious.
I then noticed her image was bizarrely fuzzy. I'm losing focus again …. I furrowed my brows, tilting my head awkwardly, trying to see straight. I realized a second later, it was only her eyes that were blurry. The rest of her was as clear as crystal. How strange….
"Men are total idiots…" the words wavered unsteadily, teetering on the verge between agitation and composure.
The next thing that registered in my head was that she was crying on me, clutching my shirt. And falling under the category of a 'man'-also defined as 'idiot'- I had had absolutely no idea I'd hurt her this much. The anger was shocked out of me.
"A-Anna, I didn't mean to-" I began, in some attempt of consolation.
"Yes. You. Did."
I blinked.
"You dodged my healing spells! I watched him drive his staff through you, I watched you collapse, I watched over and over as those spells tore through you! And you wouldn't stop, no matter how much I begged; I'm sure you couldn't even hear me! And when you fell I was so sure you'd…" she sobbed into my shirt.
I was dumbfounded, thoroughly bereft of words.
"Kratos… do you…."
She stopped, submitting to her tears. I noticed she'd cried so much my shirt was almost clean now.
…wow.
"Anna…" I said, disgusted with how cruel I'd been to her. I regretted it all.
"Do you… hate Kvar more than you love me?" she asked, her sobs becoming softer and more restrained.
"What?" I asked, astounded. What on earth was she talkin-
"You hate him so much and while we were-" she began.
"What on earth are you saying, Anna! That's absurd!"
"No it isn't!" she moaned into my shirt, shaking her head desperately, "Why were you so willing to throw your life away right now?"
"That has nothing to do with-"
"If you really were in love with me, you wouldn't want to die would you? Wouldn't you stay alive for me? To be with me?"
I released a captive breath, words escaping me.
"But at the ranch you would have died had I not hauled you out of there. How stupid can a man be?! Do you honestly care more for hate than love?!"
… Again, even if I had opened my mouth, nothing would have come out. There absolutely nothing I could say to that.
"If that's true, I might as well die on you right now," she muttered under her breath, casting her gaze away, forgetting I could hear it perfectly well.
My expression immediately darkened with severity and hatred, my dark eyes piercing through hers. I became rigid, every muscle in me tense with anger. And she calls me an idiot?!
"Don't you understand I was angry?! I was blind—for a moment— however long it was."
How bizarre… it was usually Anna yelling at me for being so indifferent. Not the reverse.
"In that 'moment' you could have been killed. You forgot about me. Things can change dramatically in seconds if you forget what you must always remember," she murmured, burying herself in my shirt again, refusing to meet my eyes, "Love."
She must have been stealing words out of my mouth. Occasions where I had no clue how to respond to someone, were rare. In fact, Anna was the only person who could trap me in those situations.
"Oh, Kratos, please never lose yourself again… that was horrifying," she was trembling, clinging to my shirt as though I was still considering returning to the ranch, "Please…."
--
I abruptly reopened my eyes, finding we were where we had started several hours before our attempt at infiltration: outside the ranch's side entrance.
I paid no heed as the others began to talk of gratitude and Luin and other various topics I cared very little of. I was entirely enveloped in my own thoughts, thoughts specifically of that particular moment.
I never did promise her I would restrain my anger for the sake of love…. It was a weakness that I failed to overcome. And was one of the reasons— I could not— one of the reasons she is no longer breathing.
Thank God I was able to restrain it to protect Lloyd. He could very possibly be dead as well… had I repeated my mistake.
--
Me: Annnnnnnnaaaaa! TT
Lloyd: Did Kratos really think that? O.O
Me: Mhm. Probably less dramatically but yeah. He hates Kvar just as much as you do, Lloyd! (Blows nose)
Lloyd: That can't be true! How could he just stand there when Kvar talking trash about him?
Me: He has alota self-control! Too much self-control! It's so sad! TT
Lloyd: Yeah… that was pretty sad. And I hate you for all the foreshadowing you did in the flashback. I hate thinking about that stuff….
Me: (Sniffles) I know, Lloyd! We share your pain! TT Review everyone! Show Lloyd you care!
Lloyd: Ugh… I feel like crap….