justice for all
Clive... is... in a word... awesome. I don't regret getting him at all. But that's besides the point. I'm writing this out after hearing about Clive and Elza's story, and it's angstiness (and reflecting upon how to turn it into a good fanfic or something). This is, of course, in Clive's point of view.
Timeline-wise, this takes place after the fulfillment of the Elza-Clive mini-quest. MAJOR SPOILERS ON THIS PART! Don't read beyond this point if you don't want that... and don't say I didn't warn you.
She killed him.
Therefore, she must die.
That was what I had once believed.
Now, I don't know what to believe.
For years, I have hunted her down. The flame of vengeance within me threatened to consume me whole. I hunted her tirelessly, ceaselessly.
I watched the few people I had considered as friends drift away from me as my obsession became too great for them to understand.
I spent many nights travelling under the moonlight, feeling my body begin to submit to the exhaustion, feeling my soul yearn for the day that I would end her life with my own two hands.
I collapsed so many times during my travels, only to pick myself up and press forward in hopes of catching her once again. I did not care about myself. Avenging the death of my family was all that had mattered... avenging them by killing her.
Only when I had stained my hands with her lifeblood would I lay my head down to rest at last.
She led me on this game for so long... so terribly long. Yet, like a crazed or obsessed man I followed her...
She led me on, only to hit me with the truth.
The truth that I couldn't handle.
The truth that I didn't want to believe.
The truth that destroyed what little I had left to hold on to.
Too much has happened for me to apologize for my crimes. There is no room for forgiveness.
I have been left as I am. A man with no purpose in life. A man with no place to go.
At day time, I blame it upon her...
But at night, the truth haunts me again.
***
"Clive, it's time to go."
He didn't hear her voice, nor did he see Nanami standing there, fidgeting uncomfortably from under the cover of his parasol. She stood there, watching him looking at the gravestone and the freshly dug mound before it.
He didn't feel the rain, didn't feel its coldness chilling his body, seeping into his immaculately black clothes. He didn't notice Storm lying lax in his callused and bandaged hands, didn't note the fact that the gun he had sworn to bring justice with upon his adversaries had never fired a shot when it had mattered the most.
Even in death, she mocked him, mocked him from the cold granite stone that bore her name.
Elza.
Silently, Clive sank to his knees, grabbed the dirt before the stone in his hands, and cursed the invisible stars for the truth that had failed to set him free.