(The unrelated last chapter. Irrelevant? Maybe. It's only relevance is the title, and I doubt it draws everything together. And why should it? Well, enjoji.)
Nails
Her nails shone like the moon. Her nails were filed to sparkling perfection.
Even after leaving long trails of blood down Nnoitora's back, tearing through his prized hierro, they remained perfect.
Her nails were cut to hurt him.
He knew this, as did she. Her regality was based on her physical superiority.
Sometimes, late at night, he would wake to a dream-clouded vision of Neliel's shining nails sparkling on his windowsill, signifying that soon, her body was to follow.
Sometimes, late at night, she did appear.
Those were the nights he woke up screaming.
Her eyes were always disinterested, as they looked up and down his lanky, naked, hyperventilating form, his covers cast aside.
Her nails tapped upon the wood of his dresser, the taps becoming deafening thunderclaps within Nnoitora's brain.
Her bare feet made no such sound, and he wondered that she even moved.
Her nails glimmered in the light; they caught his eye.
Sometimes he wished she were as beautiful as she made her nails. He secretly loved the perfect sheen and shape of her nails, nearly always hidden by immaculate white gloves.
She was nothing like them. She did not even strive to be.
She could be broken, unlike those nails.
She did not shine like those nails.
She was not sharp. She was not cruel. She was kind, loving, and altogether weak.
She was weaker than him mentally, and yet physically stronger.
He hated that.
And yet, there was absolutely nothing he could do to change his fate, and the fact that despite her imperfections, he still loved her.
The thing he hated the most about her nails was the fact that they ripped through his hierro, leaving garish red trails.
Nothing was supposed to be able to cut him, especially not her fingernails.
And yet, he bled, and he was cut.
He hated those fingernails, yet their beauty astounded him, and made him love her somehow.
Even when they were covered in sheen of his blood, they still shone through with their glorious beauty.
Those nails dug into his skin, holding him stock still, unable to move, think, or feel.
The only thing he could feel were the pinpricks of pain dappling his skin, the root of which were her nails digging into his skin.
Someday, he wished to separate those perfect nails from her skin as a keepsake, when finally, he defeated her.
-End