MaroonSorrow: Thank You, to my few reviewers. Sorry about the long Hiatus... I Officially Dedicate This Chapter to my best friend, Sarah Miller!... Eh...Read the tangent thing I posted on my Livejournal!!!! Livejournal.com, user Jahisan!!!!!!
Empress Galaxia: I was just tired of Legato's mother being a sweet perfect housewife who's only role is to die and traumatize him, or not being in the story at all. Also, my twisted little mind likes the idea of Vash being Legato's dad.
Lil Kayke: Happy - sad indeed! I don't think I will be making the relationship between the two lemony or anything like that, though..
Animekittykat: This chapter is longer... You like it?
Yma: You are the only one who reviewed twice. You have no idea how happy that makes me!! And you gave me the best compliment ever! eyes grow to the size of watermelons THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ... ... ...
Disclaimer: Legato belongs to the Past, to Pain and to Dreams, ... not to me.
Warning: Rated R-ness for VIOLENCE!! Not a lemon. Oi! ... And a hyper author.
Warm crimson streams down the walls of a living crystal. Tainted by the blood of the person he hates most, dreaming a living death, Legato Bluesummers' heart is cold, as his fathers heart is warm, his tears are blood, as his fathers are crystal. Crying the sins of the human race, Legato's heart is empty, filled with corners and screams. All of this he keeps locked with an iron self control that once fully realized has never been broken. This Self - Control is the only kindness he has ever shown the world, the single shard of his fathers sun evident in him. All of this Legato keeps inside, shown by his mother that he can not exist if not like this. Can anyone begrudge him his right to murder?
To this end humanity has groomed him, to be Deaths' playmate, to wash clean the world with his fathers hands. "Forgive them Father, they know not what they have done...," To your end, humanity, you have twisted Legato Bluesummers, to kill leisurely from behind his wall of Self- Control... If the bloodlust once reflected in his eyes should rekindle... If he should remember bloods caresses drawn against his cheek... The whole world will surely lay down and die.... for you Legato... They will lie down and die. They say nothing bad ever came of love... they are wrong. What will you think then, Father?
Ch.3 Self Control
"My mother needs to die. " I know not what spawned this thought, but it has been consistently surfacing in my mind unbidden in the past few days, if days ever come to the darkened heart that is my realm. It is true, that my mother, and indeed all of humanity, locked in this prison of life need to die, to vanish and erase themselves in their own blood. But I have not yet debated killing them myself. Killing one would involve killing all of them... there is no in between. I do not wish to,... for the taint of my mothers blood , the pathetic human child that I thought I had long banished has resurfaced, ... and is muddling my logic. Debating this point is a battle I cannot win, for my only options are kill everyone here and then leave and have the newspapers appoint me the "Silent Killer" or something ignorant like that, and be thought of as a "murderer," or to stay here and perhaps change some day, or leave, and be forced to tolerate these humans for the rest of my life. The child who plagues me is insisting that he does not want to go on a vendetta all alone for a cause no one will appreciate. However, he can not consign himself to being here for the rest of his miserable existence either. But there is not time to contemplate the matter now. I, Legato, who have from now until I or another end my miserable existence, have all time, am complaining for lack of it, Ah, irony. My mothers footsteps echo down the fetid halls of this hovel, announcing that she is retiring to "her room." For all the time I have spent here, it is still "her room. " Her hand hesitates on the cold doorknob, feeling the absence of life's fervor in my room, as if her mind is screaming RUN but her logic is binding her. Fool. She turns the handle...
Perhaps all humans have some slight psychic ability that awakens in time of need, some sensibility that allows them to sense when something is different, rather like the sensation an animal has when it knows it is being hunted. My mother has just entered the room, and she already knows something is wrong. I observe the hair bristle on the back of her neck like a frightened mongrel, yes, just like the frightened Bitch she is. Why not make a game out of this? , some part of my mind asks, and I agree. As my mother turns her face to me slowly, like a felon facing her executioner, I smile. How was today, mother? Did you enjoy your last supper? Somewhere between the time my mother opened the door and the time she turned around, her very human, dank, hot blood rose in my veins and demanded my mother not live to see another dawn illuminate the horizon of the pathetic city I make my residence in. Mothers face is a cracked mask that even temporarily fails to mask her surprise at my " polite" question.
Looking me in the face, she makes a crude attempt at disguising her scanning of my face, trying to fathom what is new, why I am making an attempt to be "nice to her." Her misinterpretation is so amusing that I nearly laugh out loud. The bitch believes that I have developed romantic feelings for her. I may have "grown up" in a harem, but still...! I am sure that most fourteen year old children would have no inclination towards such things, and I certainly do not. But my mother is right in one way... the glaze in my eyes is caused by the emotion that I feel for her... I want to... caress her heart with my mind and destroy it, I want to cause her crimson suffering, warm and sweet. This in my eyes, Mother, is bloodlust.
My day was fine, Legato... She leans toward me, giving me a view of her decolletage and scanning my eyes for any reaction, attempting to confirm her theory. I What she does not realize is that at this close range, the beating of her hated heart drowns out everything, all thought, all reason, fanning the flames of deaths' desires. Mother...! I breath, and then stand up suddenly, away from her and the roaring black hole looming around her that is ebbing my self control.
My voice is smooth with a slight rasp as I approach her, Legato as the Inferno. Her eyes grow wide as an eternity of frightened thoughts parade through her mind, because some part of her knows what is truly happening. Her pupils dilate and her breathing is accelerated... I smile at her, because she won't live much longer.
( I will be switching from narration to Legato's POV to Jalin's -his mother's- POV, so just sit tight and enjoy the ride... Oh, and after this is fairly R rated for violence... Heh...)
Legato smiles tenderly at his mother, power rasping down his voice. " Stop Shaking. " Her body instantly obeys, and her feeble mind wails terror. Le...ga..to...?! " How can you... talk in my head... ! " Her body may not be shaking, but her voice is. She emits a series of gasping, breathy noises, as if she has run a long way. Some " logic" in her mind asserts itself for what will probably be the last time, and against her better instincts, she rises from the bed and looks her son in the eye. "Foolish woman. You need to be punished..." PAIN, Legato whispers, and blood snakes its way down his mothers neck from a shallow, surgical quality cut on her neck, just over her jugular. Screams. The terror rampant in her thoughts is sweet poison stealing its way through Legato's already drugged system. She tries to push him and run, chaos devouring reason, but he easily anticipates her move and grabs her hand, bruising her wrist with the force of his long, fragile looking fingers. With his other hand he fondles the hollow of her throat where the blood has run down over her heart. " The feeling of the pulse in your throat... is incredible! Like a caged butterfly beating against a cage, controlled by invisible strings, directing the blood of her life. How fragile your life is, mother. " A panicked yellow forms around the rim of his mothers pupils as Legato momentarily contemplates her pulse. The unusual yellow gaze of her eyes surprises Legato as she wrenches her hand out of his grip, shoves open the door, and runs panicked down the hall, coarse yellow hair streaming behind her. " Let her run. She can hardly escape me... " People parting like water around him, Legato strides down the hall after his mother, into the cooling night.
It is an interesting sensation to step into the hall that I have never traveled in body but have constantly paced in the minds of others. People part around me, their faces blank as if they are dreaming awake, frozen in the attitude of their tasks. I am free now, from the confines of this hall. As I walk like a specter through a fantasy, surrounded by unmoving paper figures, my heart is... awakened, free to follow in body what the mind has traveled for so long. A sense of unreality seeps through this frozen world I have created with my mind. As I step out into the blessed night, surrounded by dark stars, I look back into the paralyzed world I have left and restore it with a sweep of my hands. Activity instantly resumes from the paralysis I imposed on it when I stepped out of my room. No one remembers or laments my passing through this hall, nor will they ever.
My mothers' body is quickly exhausting itself. This running is pointless, were she walking, it would make no difference in her life span. She runs barefoot through the torrid back alleys, afraid to stop, unable to go forward. Yet you are not as caged as I was , Mother. Do You Remember?! Alone in that horrible room, alone and never knowing the sound of my voice! Suddenly, I am weary of this pointless chase. "Stop." I whisper subtly to the back of your mind, and it obeys, though more slowly this time, taking the time to change my comment into " He must not be following me, I can stop and rest now", as I had anticipated your mind would. I approach now, making sure to block the footfall of my feet from your mind, though how I do this I have not the faintest of ideas. I appear from around the corner and dissipate your mental mist. I imagine you stepping towards me, your heart hammering as you do. I love it when my thoughts mirror reality.
I look you in the eyes, letting the pressure build behind my eyes until you have no choice but to look me in the eyes and put your rigid, cold hand against my throat. Do you feel a pulse? I ask. Do you!? Feel. A. Pulse??!
( After this, REALLY HORRIBLE VIOLENCE!!! DON"T READ IF EVEN SLIGHTLY SQUEAMISH!!!!!!)
Nnnnnoooo... you stammer. That's right, because I'm dead! We are both dead!" Legato's voice crescendoes, although he still sounds smooth, beautiful and insane. Why she can't feel his pulse, neither of them truly knows... but she will certainly pay for giving voice to the feeling Legato has had all his life. Dead, invisible. Soon you will be too, the chorus of the blood in your veins is screaming. "You need to die. DIE!"
Legatos' warm madness reaches out and envelopes his mother, who shivering in her frail nightgown, unwillingly reaches one of her hands up, over her own heart. Legato takes one of his hands and gently, almost tenderly, places it over hers. They are silhouetted against the sky, two figures face to face. Although not much older that fourteen, Legato is taller than his mother, despite malnutrition, and because his mother is tiny. Jalins hand begins to tighten under his, to scratch into her flesh, fingernails becoming flooded with blood. Legato is not pushing her, not injuring her, just a slight pressure on her hand, a slight guide as her hand works its way into her flesh, towards her heart. Tears running down her face, unable to speak under the feeling of the drugged power that surrounds her, Jalin steadily kills her self. Although her chest is only flayed about an inch and a half in, the blood loss is taking it tole on her strength. She is already ( functionally) dead, but Legato wants more. He whispers some soft obscenity in her ear and she continues, until her breath is barely coming and fragments of bone show. Legato releases her from his spell and allows her limp hand to fall to one side, fingernails worn, their shards embedded in her flesh. He reaches out, and parting the last threads of her flesh, he touches her heart with the soft tip of his finger in time to feel its final contortion. Blood is spattered all down his handsome face, but Legato doesn't mind. All is calm, and his powers are so spent that he hears only the barest whisper of Dreams from the people in the vicinity. Legato is so happy that the echo of their dreams is a soft lull that gently calls sleep to him as he lays his mother by the wayside and staggers off to find a place to watch the sunset for the first time.
Maroonsorrow: So, does this make up for the long absence...? I love Legato, La La La La... Should I change this to R rated? He has never seen the sunset before, because there are no windows in his room... Oh, and there is a reason Legato was able to use his powers... and there will be repercussions for using them in the next chapter. NEXT CHAPTER: Enter Knives...! Yeah. See you, Space Cowboy.