So here it is as promised :D Since it's a back-to-back the only thanks I have to give are the ones to all the beautifully wonderful people who are reading this right! xD

Let's get going with it c:


Chapter Twenty-Seven

Box of Regrets


My body felt heavy and pinned down to the floor. Even when Elliot spoke, something was buzzing in my head making his voice somewhat undistinguishable. That stone was doing some serious stuff to me.

"Don't push yourself!" Chronos bellowed in my head but sounding very far off.

"You've only just become whole a few minutes ago. You're body hasn't had enough time to recover all it's strengths!" Lacrimosa joined him with the same concern.

Taking their warnings into account, it took much of what energy I had to just gaze up. Madame Nightray was still the same woman I had met when Elliot had brought Leo and I to the Nightray manor. That silky and wavy blonde hair that was laid out to her sides. Those blue sky eyes that simply bore into me. Elliot had clearly inherited his looks from her. Same blonde hair, just less wavy. The same gentle, blue sky eyes. Yet now they weren't gentle like they had been when I met her. Now, they seemed empty and senseless. She seemed so emotionless and yet she pertained the smile on her dainty face.

After leaving the Nightray's, I had completely lost touch with her. I had absolutely no idea of what had happened to her in the last year and a half. At hearing a certain jingling and noting the medallion on her cloak, I didn't need to guess too much.

It took some energy to gather myself again and stand with Radiant Dawn in my hands. Holding it up at her, I bared my teeth a bit loosing all sort of respect towards her. "I'm only saying this one last time. Move out of our way."

"Florence, is it not?" My eyes narrowed at hearing her use my mother's surname to refer to me. Word gets by faster than I thought. "So your real name is Claire Florence."

"So what?" I said through gritted teeth not wanting to let show the pain I was in because of the stone.

"I heard from Yura-sama—" She slowly began to approach me but I tried my best not to falter from my stance. "About your sorrowful situation. Your mother and father died when you were just a toddler. And just recently your only blood-related brother passed away too. To be frank—" She stood inches away from Radiant Dawn's tip but managed to reach out with her hand to touch my cheek with her fingertips. Cold. Her hand was ice cold. But when I tried moving even a little bit I realized that I wouldn't even budge. What's happening to me?! "I felt pity for you. I, too, have lost dear sons and am well aware of how painful it is to lose the ones we love."

Then, taking me completely by surprise, her fragile hand rapidly reached to my throat and yanked me before throwing me off against a wall. The hit was such that it punched the air out of my lungs and tussled my vision a bit as I slid down the stone. "Then again—" At hearing her voice clearer, I glanced up as my vision focused. At the clarity of what she held in her hands, I gasped and screamed.

"No!" In her small hands was Cloude's broche.

"You shouldn't be alive either." I couldn't move. I was paralyzed by the terror of what she held in her hands and that only intensified when I saw that her hands began putting pressure on the jewel. "Do you really value—" The grip became tighter and tighter before I started scrambling my way there. "The dead more than the living?"

-crack-

The pieces fell from her hands, shattered. I could only stare at them as they clacked at reaching the floor before me.

"Mother!" Elliot's cry of fright send chills down my spine. I heard the clanking of metal against the stone before I saw a thin dagger in her hand. Had she tried hurting me with it? Did she mean to kill me? The thoughts quickly fluttered out of my mind when my eyes fell back down on the broken broche.

My hands trembling, I reached out to cradle the broken pieces in my shaking fingers. The golden swirls were shattered, the hinges of the locket broken. Fidgeting, my fingers reached beyond the broken latch and found the small picture that it held inside. It was of me, smiling and holding out my hand to hold another's. To hold Cloude's hand. The other half of my picture.

The pain that I felt traveled from my chest to my head making it throb. Suddenly, I couldn't hear much of their conflict as they continued. Everything was becoming quieter by the second and I felt myself being engulfed into a void.

I knew this feeling... This was a memory. My mind began to fill with thoughts of that day. I had been crying and could barely breath. Jack was holding me while I sat on his lap, trying to console me.

Yeah—click—I remember that day.


"Come on, Vince! We need to hurry!" My little self was panting from running but held a great smile while holding to her chest an animal stuffed doll.

That day was a few months after our seventh birthday. It was the second year that I had celebrated without Cloude. But it was somewhat livelier now that I had Gilbert and Vincent as my friends. That afternoon, us three had been playing hide and seek out in the back gardens of the mansion. It had been Gilbert's turn to go find us and Vincent and I had gone to hide.

"W-Wait up, Claire!" he had cried while barely following suit behind me. Finally stopping to let Vincent catch his breath, I glanced around looking for a place to hide. Somewhere deep in the forest peaked a tall tower. Taking him by the hand, I dragged Vincent out towards it and finally stood before the entrance. "Whoa. He won't even think of looking in here."

"No, Claire. We can't go in there. The girl that lives in there is very mean!" he cried out pulling at my dress's sleeve.

"Someone lives in there! Why didn't you say so before?" Yanking him off, I turned to smile at him before heading off towards the entrance and up the stairs. Skipping steps so that he wouldn't catch up to me, I reached the only entrance draped in magenta curtains.

"No, Claire. Wait!" But Vincent's warnings went unheeded. I should have listened. Now I regret not having done so.

Reaching out with my hand in curiosity, I wasn't prepared to hear the sound of the voice that came from beyond the doorway.

"It's none of your concern."

Cloude? My fingers clutched the curtain at hearing his voice. My ears strained out to hear more clearly. I felt Vincent pulling on my arm but I wouldn't budge.

"It's for her."

"Ah, yes." Another voice, this time a young girl's, came through giving me chills. "It's because of her sickness, right?"

Sickness?

"Please, Claire. Let's leave!" Vincent hissed very prominent on us leaving. But I wouldn't move. I had to listen.

"If I can do anything to avoid those from happening then yes. There's no other reason for me to be here."

"Of course not." The girl giggled a bit, frightening me. "After all, ever since I enabled you to see the writings, stopping those happenstances has been your struggle. To keep fate from coming true. And no matter how much I tell you it's worthless, you just don't listen. Are you that blind?"

"By hope, maybe," he answered. "But you have a cure to that. And I have gotten what you requested. Now, stop it."

The girl heaved a heavy sigh but I could tell she didn't really care one way or another of what he asked of her. "I can't."

"What?! But you—"

"When this was proposed I said that I knew of a way but never that I was the one who could stop it. That's not in my power to do. You have already entangled yourselves into a mess that only you can bring yourself out of. Just take it as a cautionary tale. The more you experience of it, the more well prepared you'll be to face the event. What's bound to happen, will happen. No ifs or buts."

"You lied to me!"

"Lying is such a mean word. Let's just say I...omitted some information. But don't fret. After all, I said before that all is not lost. There's one solution to your problem that you will find but in its due time. So in a way, I kept to my word. Do you still not trust me?"

There was utter silence before Cloude spoke. "Fine. But only because I have to be the one to outlive her. That way...I'll stop the White Sage's curse."

That brought a hellfire in my heart that burst me through the curtains to stand before the duo that had been speaking. Cloude had been standing before a long couch were a girl sat. Her dress was of very pretty white and pink colors, while her hair was a dark chocolate that pooled around where she sat. Her eyes were a gelid, amethyst color. Cloude was dressed casually in some trousers and buttoned up shirt underneath a blue vest. But what surprised me the most was the shocked look he had at seeing me there before him.

"What are you talking about?!" I burst out in shouts toward Cloude. "Mom was the White Sage. What stupid curse are you talking about!?"

But the only word he could muster was my name barely more than a faint whisper. "Claire...?"

"Tell me!" By now there was a big stinging sensation on my eyes but I ignored it as my anger mounted. "What sickness is she talking about? What're the writings?!" When he said nothing but kept staring, I yelled out again. "Answer me!"

I had never yelled at him before. I had never been angry at him before. But the rage and sorrow that consumed me whole wouldn't live down. This had to be let out. Our mother was a good person. There was nothing cursed about what she did. Nothing!

"Why are you here...?" His cold tone suddenly made all my anger vaporize in thin air and made me flinch.

"Cloude?" My voice was nothing above a whisper and it showed how my anger had quickly changed into fear. I had never heard him like that before. So cold and distant. So...hateful.

"Why are you here!" This time he didn't just mumble it. He shouted at me. Out of the blue, I felt something flowing down my cheeks and dripping down my chin. "You're not supposed to be here!"

"W-Why won't you tell me anything anymore?" My question was feeble and yet loud enough for him to hear.

"Because you already left me out!" he yelled and swung his arm away at me. "When you have all of them, why would you need me?! The Baskervilles, those two, and Jack too! You've replaced me with them! And if I no longer belong with you then you don't belong with me either!" At those harsh words, I dropped the stuffed animal I had held so tightly in my hands.

"You're all I have left!" I cried out for him to hear my pleas. "None of them—no one could ever replace you!"

"You broke your promise! You left me alone!"

"That's not true!" I bellowed back feeling how my whole being was slowly shattering into pieces. "I didn't leave you. You left me! You left me to gain more power! Tell me, where's that power gotten you!"

He grabbed his head as if in pain then hissed back at me. "You don't get it." He swung his arm out on thin air and shouted. "You don't mean anything to me now! Leave!" He sprinted to me and shoved me down to fall back. "Leave and never talk to me again! I don't ever want to see your face again!" Then what he yelled at the top of his lungs broke me down completely.

"I HATE YOU!"

I didn't think. I just ran. I ran as fast as I could and as far as my shaking legs would take me. Soon enough, I had run long enough to where no one could find me. I hid and cried my heart out on my own, the words he said repeating endlessly in a loop.

I didn't want this... I just sat there crying. Alone. Completely and utterly alone.

Even if I had Lottie one-sama and the others as my new family...
Leave and never talk to me again!
It didn't matter.

Even if I have Vincent and Gilbert...
You don't mean anything to me now!—
It didn't matter.

Even having Jack with me...
I don't ever want to see you again!—
It didn't matter.

If I didn't have him—If Cloude wasn't going to be with me then...

"You'll never leave me, right?"

"I promise, Claire. I'll never leave you alone. No matter what I'll always be by your side. No matter what, we'll always be brother and sister."

"Forever and always."

"I hate you!"

Without him it was the same as being completely alone.

Afterwards had been when Jack had found me and took me back to my room. He kept trying to talk to me. Trying to get me to tell him what happened. But I couldn't. I felt that if I said anything about it aloud, it would come true. I would actually be admitting that I had lost the most important thing in my world. The one thing I needed...and that I had lost forever.

"Cloude...He hates me now."

"What?" he asked very concerned by the way my voice sounded so monotone.

"I'm alone now!" I cried covering my eyes with my hands as I wept into them. "Without him, I'm all alone!" Silence ensued only filled with the sobs from my sadness.

"Your mother—" he spoke finally, bringing my attention to him. "Once made a spell that I learned."

"M-Mom?"

He gave me a curt nod before continuing. "It's magic that gets all the sadness inside a heart and locks it up real tight so that it won't hurt anymore."

"Really?"

"What it will do is put all those and future hurtful memories in a box and lock them away for you. With the memory of what hurt you locked up, you won't feel sad anymore. And although the memories won't disappear, they'll be tightly hidden."

"Can you do that...with my memories?"

His demeanor suddenly changed to a sullen one before he whispered to me his answer. "If it's something you don't want to remember that badly..."

My head bobbed up and down from how vigorously I was nodding. "Please, I don't want to hear him in my head anymore. I never want to remember him say those words to me again."

With a heavy sigh he placed two fingers upon my heart. A glimmering golden light took my attention as it gave me a warmth that spread through my whole body. "Then let those memories of past, future and present be held inside thee. This box that will be locked forevermore and that will remain locked until you are strong enough to face them. This will be the links of the chain of your memory that you will undo but never lose. And remember, these memories will be the ones you will pity most when experiencing, the ones you will hate the most when remembering, and suffer the most from the emotions they bring to you. This will be that box that contains them. This small and sorrowful—"

"Box of regret..."

Just then I noticed that I had actually said that out loud and that nothing much had changed since I had began seeing it in my mind. Time again had been frozen in my memories.

That endless message that I had imprisoned in that box in me. It contained so much regret and pain that I never wanted to see it again. But now...I wasn't a kid. And I knew that no matter how painful they were, I had to face them. I had to face them; I had to keep moving forward.

At that thought, a sudden rush of energy surged through my body, hitching my breath. "What is this...?" I didn't have to lean against the wall anymore because of the force that the stone was giving off.

"C-Claire!" Chronos' voice sounded somewhat amazed at what happened as well.

"W-What's happening?" I whispered feeling much lighter than before. The effects of the stone were barely getting to me now.

"Y-Your powers and ours—" Lacrimosa called just as astonished as us. "The limiter on them—it's broken!"

My resolve felt much more confident now that I had this power surging through me. I was finally understanding what both Elliot and Oz kept saying...about moving forward. It didn't mean that you finally found the way to move forth. It meant that you were finally ready to take the first step yourself. And I was more than ready to deal with the regret I had built up. From now on, I would live with no more regrets. I would keep moving forward.

The sudden sound of a slap took my attention to Elliot who had just been hit by his mother. "Don't say such dreadful things. Humpty Dumpty is a sacred power bestowed upon us to fulfill our mission."

"Mother..." But suddenly, he staggered and fell back some feet.

This feeling...

"This is my Chain." Celia. That was her name. And that was when I saw her Chain by accident. "Its name is Humpty Dumpty."

It's the same oppressive feeling as that time. This had to be it. When Elliot began holding his chest in pain and sliding down the wall, I ran over to him yelling his name in concern. I couldn't find any injury whatsoever. What was causing this?! "Elliot, speak to me. What's wrong?" I whispered holding his face in my hands. He couldn't answer and only grimaced more.

"You're undoubtedly being punished for interfering with the ceremony." My eyes gazed up to see Madame Nightray approaching Leo were he lay unconscious once more. "Be good children now and watch. It's a real pity that Vanessa died but...it'll be all right." She glanced at her tiny watch before slithering out an ivory knife from under her cloak. She raised it at him and the surprise and shock made me react groggily. "Once we're all in the Abyss we can live happily together again!"

I can't reach them. They're too far. I can't stop her!

"Leo!"


Well boys and girls, there it is. I will leave you with this until...sunday. Maybe.

Hopefully I'll upload more before monday c: For now hoped you enjoyed it and stayed tuned for next time :D