TAGS: The Fated Day, Arco Curse Aftermath, Breaking The Fourth Wall (very briefly), POV Third Person
Suicide Ideation, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Mental Breakdown, Mental Anguish, Physical Pain
Hurt No Comfort, Angst and Feels, Arco Curse, Arco as Family
Luce Friendly, Immortal Skull, Nonbinary Viper
WARNING: Not Beta Read
Do you ever think about what happened right after the Curse?
The light dies down, Kawahira disappears to never be seen again, and it's just them.
Alone on top of a mountain, on top of the world, and it's the worst thing that ever happened to them.
Then what?
Do you ever think about how did it go?
They're in pain, strangers in their own body, strangers to each other when a minute ago they were each other's. There's dread and confusion and panic, and their Rain is gone, and this is not their Rain—where is their Rain?
The Chosen Seven turned infants, vulnerable, helpless—this isn't how it was supposed to go.
This is a death sentence.
Their world falls apart, their life as they knew it is over, but through it all they know it's one as the pacifiers steal their flames.
This is how they die, and the sound of the judge's hammer rings in their ears, and it echoes and echoes and echoes and echoes—
Luce knows, as soon as the light dies down, as soon as she feels the weight of the pacifier around her neck, sees it shine the bright orange color of her flames.
She looks down at her Guardians, the only one among them standing as tall as she was before the light, and she puts everything together.
Terror like she never felt before takes hold of her heart in a crushing grip.
She doesn't know what it means for her baby.
Isn't naive enough to think it won't mean anything, holds on the bittersweet—so much more bitter than sweet—belief she'll give birth to her baby anyway so it can mean anything at all.
She will, her baby is okay, she's okay, she must be, but the truth is she doesn't know.
Luce wants to fall on her knees and swear, swear she didn't know, swear she didn't see it coming, swear and swear and swear it again until her throat dries out, and her tongue bleeds out, and she can't speak anymore.
She does fall on her knees but only to choke on her cries because she knows, she knows there's nothing she could say now—not now, maybe not ever—to make them believe her.
Oh how she hates knowing.
She'd laugh, because if there was one thing that wasn't going to fall apart today she wishes it wouldn't be this, but she's too busy crying.
(—and echoes—)
Skull screams, screams, screams; writhes on the floor, not so much in pain than in terrifying despair.
He breaks his nails on the pacifier and doesn't even scratch it, tugs on it until the chain brands itself on his skin and it breaks and bleeds.
He claws at his throat, tears the skin apart in deep, bleeding gashes, anything so he can breathe again—but it heals, but he's faster to do it again.
His screams come out strangled, pain and fear and agony all in one same choked sound, and it's one they'll never forget.
Skull would cut off his head to get the damn thing off of him if he could put himself together long enough to do it, but he's terrified to learn what it'd mean for him to put himself together out of losing his mind.
He wishes he'd lose it for good. He wants to die. He can't.
Never had been able to, rarely even got to lose consciousness.
He's stuck in a constant state of torture, and it's his worst nightmare came to life.
(—and echoes—)
Colonnello writhes on the floor, and all of it is pain, there's no room for anything else.
The weight of a Curse that wasn't meant for him weighs down on his body, sinks inside and twists and breaks him apart to fit where it doesn't.
It kills him.
The soldier in him tells him so, recognizes death when he sees it coming. Colonnello won't be strong enough to bear the Curse, to survive it, and yet he still has to die.
The soldier in him soldiers on, finds the strength Colonnello doesn't have, and the Curse kills him but he won't die.
(He isn't thankful for it.)
Colonnello barely hangs on his consciousness, eyes open but he registers nothing of the outside world, not when everything inside him collapses.
A Harmony forces itself on his flames, viciously fought against from both sides, but a greater force keeps them together.
He heaves, his body cold and burning, shivering, bile rising up his throat but nothing comes out.
The Harmony falls in place and doesn't feel like a Harmony at all, and he wants to cry.
Colonnello registers Lal, fierce, beautiful Lal, turned into an infant despite his best efforts, and he never saw her shake before.
All he can think of is how many times she told him he could never finish things properly, and he wants to weep.
The blood-red scar on her face hurts him the most.
(The fact he can't feel her flames anymore pains him in ways he'll never have the words for.)
Colonnello doesn't scream.
His nails dig into the floor like a lifeline—with tiny hands from a tiny, soft, weak body—, his jaw locked tight, blood and bile coming together in an awful taste.
He doesn't have the body of a soldier anymore but he's a soldier all the same, and so he soldiers on through the pain, won't give up on life a second sooner than life will give up on him.
(He'll wish he had.)
All he can think of is the last time he saw Reborn, when they were still boys and he was already so good at getting his hands bloody.
"If you know what's good for you," Reborn said, a boy that stopped sounding like one maybe even before Colonnello noticed, "you won't want to ever meet me again."
A part of Colonnello laughs, because surely not even Reborn thought it was going to be like this.
It doesn't sound like laughs at all.
(—and echoes—)
Lal doesn't know whom this body belongs to.
The hands hold themselves to her sight when she makes them do it, the fingers flex when she makes them do it, but this body cannot be hers.
Because where are her flames?
Where is her Harmony?
It's like she's bleeding out, but instead of feeling light-headed she's empty, but no, it's not emptiness, it's a lack.
There's a hole inside her gouged out so ruthlessly, whatever is left of her cut itself on its sharp, uneven edges.
The hole is empty because it misses something, something that got ripped away from her.
She's not empty because flames run through her, fill out the space left behind that isn't theirs, that'll never be theirs, these flames are wrong and they aren't hers.
Where is her Rain?
Her sight blurs on the right side, and it's the pulsing, searing pain she won't acknowledge—not today, not before a long time—, but it's also the tears.
Why is she crying?
Nothing here is any of her concern, this isn't happening to her, she isn't there, of course not, how could she?
Her body isn't there for her to be.
Her Sky and Elements kneel on the floor, not all of them crying but all of them in pain, in fear. She sees it in their eyes, in their body language, in every line of their face.
She knows they are but she doesn't feel it, not a wisp of it.
Where is her Harmony?
Skull screams, his hands and neck bloody, and she needs to soothe him, maybe to even knock him out before he hurts himself any more than he has to hurt right now.
She needs to make him stop if only because she doesn't know how much longer she'll bear the sound he makes.
Colonnello is there, because of her, and another part of what's left of her crumbles and disappears.
It's all her fault, the pain on his face, the tears in his eyes, her fault and no one else.
She needs to make it better, to remind them all how to breathe—but how does one breathe? Is she breathing?
Really, they never can do anything without her.
She can't do anything for them.
WhereisherRainwhereisherRainwhereisherRain?
Lal feels it all acutely and like she's far away, like she isn't really there, because she isn't.
This body cannot be hers, it can't, it can't, oh god, please—
Her shaky legs give out, and she falls on her knees. They slam against the floor, and reality catches to her.
This body is hers.
Lal screams, doesn't hear herself but feels it deep in her bones, deep in her soul.
This body is hers, and she doesn't belong in her Harmony anymore because her flames are gone.
(—and echoes—)
Their feelings feed off each other's through a Harmony that's crumbling, build off each other's until they erase any rational thoughts, blind them in a single-minded rage.
It's maddening, overwhelming and overflowing, but they have no one to drown in them.
Kawahira isn't there.
Luce is.
She'll disappear too but right now she's there, and they need someone to put the blame on.
She's their Sky, and the only one who's still an adult, isn't she? The only one who didn't panicked before breaking down.
Luce did this to them.
Called herself their Sky and lead them there even if she saw it coming.
She did this to them, and she'll fix this.
She can't.
She's their Sky, and she can't.
She failed to protect them and now she can't do anything to make it better, can't do anything at all.
Fix this.
She can't.
No one will punish her harder for it than herself.
"I'm sorry," Luce says, and it's guilt and a confession, but not the one they think it is.
She says nothing as she watches their face twist into something she can't bear to name.
She can let them have this, can give them that at least.
Let her be their Sky one last time.
"I'm sorry," Luce says again, and prays one day they'll be in a better place where they'll let the real meaning of her words reaches them.
(—and echoes—)
Luce would have been the first to get down the mountain, to rush into a hospital and summon the best Sun she could and make sure her baby's okay.
But she needs to see them climb down the mountain first. She needs her last memory of them not to be on top of the mountain where everything fell apart.
She needs to see for herself they got past this, even if only far and long enough to climb down the mountain.
Skull would have been the first to leave, as in he would have jumped off the cliff if he had it in him to crawl to the edge and roll past it.
They climb down the mountain together in silence.
Reborn and Lal support Colonnello on front, and it's the closest Reborn will be to one of his Elements before a long, long time.
He keeps his eyes ahead and doesn't acknowledge Lal, least of all Colonnello.
Colonnello.
Sunshine Boy, Foolish Boy, enough to befriend Reborn like he couldn't see what he was.
He could, because he's a fool but far from stupid, because he's brave, he's good.
He gave himself to the army, and Reborn wonders if it's his fault. If he doomed him the day they met when he neither put a bullet in his head nor walked past him.
Reborn wonders how he didn't see it coming.
You do not surround yourself with Death, train it to be your second nature and expect it not to kill everything you touch.
It's hilarious really, all this, whatever this is. It's hilarious they didn't realize standing on top of the mafia wouldn't feel anything but this.
Reborn wishes he could laugh.
He's on front and it's meaningless, doesn't make anyone safe. He'd be hard-pressed to bear the weight of his gun, let alone pull the trigger.
He wants enemies to ambush them right there and then all the same, wants them to be decent enough they'll aim right and make it quick.
Reborn wouldn't even make for his gun, doesn't need to confirm what he already knows.
(Not now, any other time but not now.)
He keeps his eyes ahead and will go his separate way without looking at any of them again. He doesn't want to find out what he'll say if they make eye contact, and he said enough.
The look in Luce's eyes branded itself on his mind, much like he knows the words he spat at her branded themselves on hers.
He doesn't know it's the last image of her he'll ever see, but oh, he'll know.
(—and echoes—)
Viper slips, and slips, and drowns, and they don't know what's real and what isn't anymore.
They're a child again, their flames too much for the childish grasp they have on them, their childish mind not enough to quell their thirst.
They go loose and claim reality as their favorite toy, make themselves a home into other people's minds, and won't leave them unscathed once they get bored.
But they're not a child anymore, and are so intimate with so many inner lives they played with until they knew them better than theirs, until they weren't recognizable anymore.
They can't keep their ghosts at bay now, not in their current state.
(Why not? What's their current state?)
They flood their mind all at once, images and sounds and smells and tastes and touches, memories and feelings and places and people, none of it theirs, some of it theirs, all of it theirs, they don't know, they don't know.
They still have to utter a word, but oh they have plenty to say—Have they? Yes. Yes, something horrible, unforgivable happened to Viper on that mountain—which mountain? When? Who's Viper?
But they couldn't, not when they struggle to stay afloat, to not take everyone with them into the deep, their flames shackled but free like they made sure they would never be again.
There was—is—plenty for them to feast on on top of that mountain. Reality collapsing in so many ways for so many people, so strongly, so deeply, they had purred at all the possibilities in front of them.
Viper—who's Viper?—drowns, they think, they don't know.
They know the hand in theirs is real, or at least it's the one thing they doubt the least at the moment, and they ground themself to it.
Every time they phase out and can't feel it anymore they fear this is it, their mind gave in at last, and every time they phase in and it weighs in their grip again they might almost cry because not yet, not yet.
The voice who belongs to the hand speaks, and they ground themself to it too.
"Your name is Viper, neither a man nor a woman, and one of the Strongest mafiosi of your generation. You're the Strongest Esper and Mist in the world, blessed with magic and Mist flames you always feared would consume you but they never did. This is reality."
It doesn't sound like reality, sounds like a lie, but if this person knows them as Viper—Viper, yes, they remember now, it's their name, it's them—, it must be true.
"You're climbing down a mountain. The floor is hard and uneven under your feet, the sun warms your back, the wind sways your cloak and ruffles your hair. This is reality."
Viper's flames flare, bare their teeth and close in on them for a reason they can't bother to understand, not when they kick their feet and flail their arms desperately to stay afloat.
"I'm Verde, your Lightning, someone you trust. My flames run through your body as we speak, strong enough for you to notice them without a doubt but not to hurt. I can do that because this is your real, physical body. You're here right now with me, and you won't be anywhere else as long as I'm holding on to you. This is reality."
No.
No, it can't be, because this body—
This body can't be theirs.
Their flames bear down on them fiercer, desperate, and oh, they're trying to protect them. To shape a reality easier to bear, where they won't have to realize they drowned.
It's so, so tempting.
"Your body was turned into that of an infant. The pacifier around your neck feeds on your flames and can't be removed. This is reality."
A sob tears through their throat and out of their mouth.
Drowning sounds so, so much sweeter.
Viper holds on Verde's hand as tight as him, makes themself stay grounded on reality through their cries.
They would never stop drowning, they know that better than anyone, the mind doesn't have an end even once it breaks.
(The instant they'll realize this particular reality doesn't have one either, Viper will die and Mammon will be born.)
(—and echoes—)
Verde holds on Viper for his own benefit at least as much as Viper's.
He's exhausted, his body heavy, his steps unsteady. He momentarily loses focus more than once, maybe even blacks out at times.
He was never one familiar with physical pain to begin with.
He doesn't believe for a second it'll go away, but maybe it will lessen, maybe if they're lucky it will fade in the background of their mind as they get used to it.
They will get used to it, give a human enough time and they'll get used to anything.
He isn't so sure about the pain ever lessening.
What Verde wants them to be truly lucky about is for no more side effects of whatever this is, no worsening of their condition as time goes by.
He won't bet on this either but it's worth researching, he needs to research their condition in and out as soon as he can.
Verde shocks himself with his flames to stay awake. He repeats the same words to Viper again and again and it lulls him, but he needs to stay awake.
He can't afford to pass out before his researches are done, or at least until he knows for sure they'll wake up again if they were to fall asleep.
At least one of them needs to stay awake, and of course it should be him so he can find the way to wake the others up if they can't do it by themselves.
They won't be thankful for it, and he'd huff humorlessly at that thought, but he's so tired.
Verde thought he was about to die for sure as the pacifier settled around his neck and bit down on his flames.
He suspects he might be the only one glad he didn't.
He can't fault them for it but at least they're still alive, and as long as they live they—
They...
Later. Later he'll think of something that might stop them from killing themselves as soon as he takes his eyes off of them.
For now they're alive, and he has to make it enough until he can offer something better.
Viper phases in and out less and less, and it feels more like they're giving out than them holding on. He put a Lightning barrier around them so they won't accidentally mist themself somewhere all alone.
It costs him, using his flames for something so effortless, and there's another side effect of the pacifier.
It'd cost Viper more if they were to find themself all alone in an unfamiliar place in their current state.
They cry, choked back sobs slip past their mouth, and their hand shakes in his.
Verde did this to them.
He had to, and though he wouldn't call it kindness—too tainted by selfishness for him to call it that—, surely nothing would have been crueler than letting them fool themself with a kinder, false reality.
Verde sways against them more than leans into their side, and they stay pressed against each other as they walk down the mountain.
It helps him stay grounded.
It hurts, the genius brain of a grown man in the body of an infant. He can't help but see and feel the world as deeply and acutely as he always did, but doesn't have the mean to process it all.
His brain doesn't work as fast as before either, and his too sensitive senses pick on so much more he can work through at a time.
It suffocates him.
The world terrifies him like that, from his tiny standpoint in his helpless body.
What does intelligence matter when anyone can crush you without even trying?
Verde holds on Viper's hand impossibly tighter, holds on the fact he didn't lose what matters the most to him.
He suspects he's the only one in this case, and though the guilt twists inside him he tells himself it isn't his fault.
His brain is unscathed all things considered, much more than he'd have let himself hope, much more than every other aspect of the pacifier's presence would have lead him to believe.
He's as clever as before, or not much below.
What does it matter if knowledge is held by an infant or a genius?
Knowledge is the deadliest weapon in the world all the same, and he'll simply remind it to the ones who'll make the mistake to forget it because of his appearance.
Verde isn't helpless at all, he'll be fine, somehow—soon, he'll find a way to be, that's what he does.
Not every part of his life fell apart, and he ought to make the most of it, he will.
Verde needs to lose himself in his researches as soon as he can so to forget he lost everything else but them.
(—and echoes—)
Fon carries Skull on his back, and struggles every step forwards.
He struggles.
He struggles.
He hunches over under Skull's weight, his knees bend down, and all his muscles tensed. Sweat rolls down the side of his face, and his body shakes.
Skull's pacifier digs into his back, and his sways into his field of view at his every step.
The sour taste in his mouth worsens every time he catches a glimpse of the red color of his flames, and his eyes sting.
This is the worst part of everything falling apart.
No one else would understand why, it's deeply personal to Fon, but it is.
His flames were never so disciplined, but he never wished them to be disciplined like this, not when he worked so hard to get them in a place they wouldn't be stuck in his skin but wouldn't hurt anyone he didn't wish to hurt.
The strongest of body and mind Fon is, the more control on his flames he has.
The two always went hand in hand so it shouldn't surprise him, but it does, it hurts, it's so disheartening, it terrifies him.
His eye of the Storm was never at the brink of a devastation at such a scale like this, and he wants to let it happen.
He keeps his eyes on Viper's and Verde's back, on Reborn's and Lal's further ahead, breathes at the same time Skull does, but god he wants to let it happen.
His flames run in circle under his skin, mad and anxious and raging, and he needs them out.
Past his skin, past the pacifier, past his control to be never controlled again.
(So much for working himself to the bone for control, look where it got him.)
He needs them to destroy everything in their wake, to breathe the devastation in the air, taste it on his tongue.
He needs to know all of it is his doing when his whole world unraveled and burned down, and he couldn't even graze any of it before it turned into ashes.
Fon misplaces his foot and his legs almost give out, they almost roll down to the foot of the mountain.
He regains his balance on time.
He whimpers, and bites his tongue until it bleeds, and his sight blurs.
This is the worst part of everything falling apart, and he can't live through it.
He can't—
"I'm sorry."
Fon's breath catches in his throat. He releases it slowly, straightens and blinks out his tears.
He adjusts Skull more securely on his back and makes himself smile, hopes it's genuine enough for Skull to hear it in his voice.
"What are you talking about? You weigh nothing to me, not many people do, remember?" Fon worked himself to the bone for control because he isn't selfish, because he cares, and it's the worst time for him to stop caring. "Hang in there for me, alright?"
Skull whines, wounded and so frail it breaks his heart. He hides his face in his neck, grips his shirt and wets his collar with his tears.
Fon can't live through this, but he won't act on it and it'll have to be enough for everyone.
And if he hopes his flames would implode inwards rather than explode outwards for once, no one can blame him for it.
"Hang in there for me too, okay?"
They don't comment on the fact neither of them answer.
Fon would've jumped of the edge if the knowledge he wouldn't survive the jump when he knows he could have wasn't so unbearable.
(—and echoes—)
Luce brings up the rear, cradles her belly and looks down at her Guardians who become less her Guardians every step forwards.
Her eyes are dry, she won't shed one more tear about everything she lost today.
She softly wills her heart to bleed out quietly, locks it somewhere it won't taint the rest of her, and it's as close as grieving she'll ever get in her world.
She's a Donna, she knows how this goes, how to swallow back the fury at the unfairness of it all.
Luce sews steel back to her soul, and painstakingly slides iron underneath its skin to straightens it.
No one said she was allowed to break.
(God, what would she give for someone to tell her she could.)
She's a mother, and holds on the fact she felt her baby move more than once already, but she doesn't doubt for a second the world knows better than that.
The world never allowed her to break, surely it knows not to leave her without anything to lose.
Surely it knows it could only struggle in vain as she tears it apart with her bare hands if it were to take everything from her.
Luce strokes her belly softly, trails soft if heartbroken eyes on her Guardians' back.
Their Harmony unravels every step forwards, and she'll hold close to her heart the last of its sparkle.
(—and echoes—)
(—and the sound never truly fades away.
How peculiar, to be stuck in the precise moment of your death, and dying with no end in sight.)
The World's Strongest everyone.
Thank you for your sacrifice.
A/N: I hope the fourth wall breaking didn't disturb anyone, or not too much at least. I hesitated on keeping it, but ultimately I find it really adds to the story.
Anyway, What if Luce Didn't Know am I right? It's at least as equally angsty as when she does, and I loved writing it actually zsdfghj. Though I really need to write her as happy as she deserves. One day for sure.
I hope you enjoyed the chapter. Any and all review are appreciated. Thank you for reading!
- w.h