Disclaimer: Capcom owns DMC and its characters. Alastor's/Ifrit's personalities are mine. R for the usual good stuff. And angst, juicy, juicy angst.

A/N: I wrote this while listening to Evanescence, specifically the song Tourniquet. Entirely unplanned, this chapter eerily echoes the song's lyrics! Also, the [flash!] signifies a flash of memory. The memories belong to Griffon, who is remembering moments of the coliseum battle from its beginning, winding down to present time (the second you guys enter his head.)

[Griffon's POV]

[Flash!]

"Pretender! We fight! For the last time!"

"Bring it on, Polly!"

[Flash!]

"Your back to the wall, and nowhere to run. Admit it! Admit what you really are! Detestable insect! Fraud!"

"Sounds like you're the one that needs to admit something, feather face."

"Liar! Die!"

[Flash!]

"Still you persist....!"

"Blame it on my upbringing. Dad didn't believe in quitters, an' neither do I!"

"You're father...?"

"Yeah, Sparda!"

Pain! My wing!

Falling...

[Flash!]

Charging.

Fury!

Bright steel sheathed in savage light.

Blood, lungs burning with fatigue, talons tearing into earth!

The deathblow!

Clarity...

[Flash!]

No!

By Satan's tarnished heart, no! What have I done! As the madness of denial ebbed from my mind to be replaced with sense and raking pain, I knew that I had done a terrible thing. Long ago, Sparda asked me to swear never to strike one of his blood. I agreed, dooming myself in my ignorance, as I would eventually come to find out. I didn't question my old friend, because I knew him to be a devil who valued integrity - an almost unheard of sentiment among our kind, but something he and I shared nonetheless...although...I had thought his request very unusual.

Sparda had no sired young at the time.

But now I understood, generations upon generations later. I knew now what had prompted his request - his hidden plea - asking me, the only one who would listen, and obey. I think....hard to think now, but....

I'm sure this revelation came to me as I fought his son for the last time. I remember the awesome strength of my own determination as I dove into the fight that would eventually take my wing, and my life. The pretender would finally fall! But when his power surged to clash with mine, I must have known the truth then. Yes, I did; I remember the emptiness I felt inside me when I did. Though sadly misused, the half-breed's power was...frightening. Almost a mirror of Sparda's own, but somehow...more.

But my memory was tortured with past humiliations, and my pride would not allow me to bow away gracefully. One does not allow a lesser being to spit in your face, and merely forget! But this was not a lesser being, I had told myself, but an equal. Perhaps my better.

How could I accept this without breaking my oath to Sparda while obeying my master's orders!? My throat had constricted painfully around the simple truth: I couldn't do both. My own principles had betrayed me! Damn you Sparda! You knew something like this would happen! And you still...!

Raarrrgh! But you're dead and dust and I don't have to abide by your wishes anymore! Yet I tried. I tried to do both! I shouldn't care anymore, I shouldn't care about the promise I made to you, but I did, I still do! To forget, is to give up who I am, and...and I don't want that to happen...

To adopt a different way now, after so many long years, would be blasphemy and the harshest, most damaging insult to my beliefs. It would be like saying I never believed in my code, that my honor was a facade I could don or discard whenever I needed to conform. So I went mad with shame and bitter, bitter rage, surrendering myself to my basest demonic instincts.

I lashed out at Sparda's blood. How ironic. I condemn myself now when I should have done so the first time I encountered the hunter.

And now I fell. My core - the one part of me I had always thought indestructible - had been struck a mortal blow. I fell. My body met the ground with punishing force, the sound of it carrying over the coliseum in lingering swells. Something inside me gave, I think. Bone. Organ. Didn't know. Didn't care. I welcomed the end.

And then I was floating. Pale light all around me, lifting me. It was...nice. I spread my wings, thinking I could fly away from the obligations, the pain, my own integrity, at least for as long as it would take me to regain my strength. And then a disembodied voice murmured dryly in my head, telling me the coliseum received the sacrifice, and was appeased. I suddenly became aware of the runes below me, and the awful hunger it radiated in festering waves. The very same waves that lifted me now...

My blood ran like ice in my veins.

Something heavy, something massive rammed between my shoulder blades, crushing bone, pulping muscle and bursting vitals before I even had time to gasp! Dark spirits, I felt my body break with sickening ease as I was violently returned to earth, and pinned in place! It wasn't until my core mostly smashed beneath me - that my vision swam - did the full scope of my peril finally dawn upon me.

I shrieked, and I could taste thick blood.

Pain! So all-consuming, so indescribable, that the shock of devastating injury could not numb my mind enough to help. Hard to breathe! I thought now I might die, but I didn't. It takes a lot to kill a General of death. And there he was, Sparda's son. His eyes damned me for my stupidity, but there was the shade of regret in there, too - almost completely eclipsed by revulsion of my demonic heritage, but I saw it.

He must have sensed my internal struggle during our duel - deemed me unfit to fight - yet was forced to defend himself, anyway. He hesitated to kill me so many times in my foolish rage... It's the reason why my wing is mostly gone. He hadn't shown me mercy, for which I am glad; mercy was for the weak. Dissuading me with pain and blood loss, though an act of warrior's respect, had proven little more than fuel for my wrath. I doubt anything could have stopped me, then. Dealing death had been his last resort.

But I had to tell him...! At least acknowledge what I've finally come to admit to myself! It was difficult lifting my head off the ground -

- the ground...the runes no longer shone blue, but were tinted red with my -

- Had to say something!

"Yours are definitely the powers of Sparda," I gasped, my words filled with the weight of importance. "No, even more so..."

I wanted to say more, but I was so weak... And then I found a reservoir of strength in a single, delirious notion: Sparda was dead, as was my promise to him, yet I could still redeem myself in a way. I failed my master too many times already; if I can help it, let my final act be to remedy my wrongs. At least then I'd know a measure of peace. Dying seemed to have slackened my principles.

"But I cannot let you live, for I serve my master, Mundus."

The hunter stepped forward with a protest, but I was beyond the ability to hear him. I only knew what must be done before it was too late. I raised my face toward the weeping sky as my storm slowly died with me.

I shouted in wild hope, "Mighty is the power of Mundus! Master! Grant me one last surge of power...the power to finish him!"

And my master appeared. In a roar of arcane might he appeared high above the coliseum, the heavens roiling about his avatar, the Three Eyed. Like brilliant scarlet novas, each eye was positioned at a certain point opposite one another to create a perfect triangle. He was glorious. My eyelids weighed heavily with Death's shadow, yet even now my relief matched that of the damned grasping redemption.

"Master...Mundus..."

"Griffon!" Master's booming voice cut the air with the finality of a guillotine. "You have failed me. You are no longer worthy."

No...nonononono....!

I reduced myself to begging as I feebly struggled to stand. My body betrayed me, punishing me with new agony. I couldn't even die on my own two feet! Meanwhile, the air had grown extremely volatile with power - my Emperor's strength fusing, enhancing, devouring the remnants of my own wasted energies. Wrenched from my control, the clouds boiled, and the rains redoubled their cold sting. Screaming bolts of electricity and godlike forces writhed above me, eager to feed -

- and there she was. High above - smartly hidden but watching everything - the only other witness to my execution, and my master's current favored agent. Trish.

Our eyes met, held, and I knew she could see my tormented plea as clearly as I could see her bland indifference. Abandoning the last of my dignity - conforming was not so hard, after all - I urgently, silently cried out to her with my mind. No response. I would get no aid from her. Just before she averted her frosty gaze from me, I thought I saw her mask of apathy crack. I felt it now, an emotion she hoped I would understand. She was sorry.

And I knew why.

I had failed for the last time. No more chances for me.

Those were the rules.

Chasm: I'm in the middle of the next chapter so it will take a while.