A/N: Y'know someday I'm gonna be caught back up on everything… On the plus side I played a bunch of Death Stranding yesterday. Another plus, I'm going to trapeze tonight! More upside down and climbing on things! Woo!

Disclaimer: What would happen if I owned one and not the other? *ooooohhhh* I don't though.

Let Your Instincts Drive You

They took pause at the top of a set of stairs. So far in their journey upward Nero found himself rather disgusted with what they had found. These people, patients actually, were receiving far from actual medical care and it seemed to be far more likely that they were being experimented on. Katherine didn't seem to be nearly as disturbed as he was but then, all she knew was this dirty cruel world… They had spoken with one of them, she went by the name Adeline and the memory of what she had been through, what she became… The devil hunter shook his head, the blood in his pocket suddenly seeming very heavy. He'd accepted it only because it'd somehow seemed rude to not and she'd specifically offered it to him, not to Katherine. She'd seemed more interested in the strange rune that the blood saint had scratched out anyway, just before she'd died. Katherine stepped up to the massive double doors before them, arms raised to push them open. Nero prepared for the worst, big giant doors like that were never a good sign… what he wasn't expecting though was a large flower garden. A massive sunflower esque blossom rising above their heads toward the sky, Nero wandered up to it, trying to discern what type of flower it was, the only things he'd ever seen grow this big were somewhat demonic in nature and that was the last thing he wanted to hear, was that this world had a problem with the demonic on top of everything else. He was so absorbed in his thoughts that at first he didn't hear Katherine start moving behind him, he did hear, however, the quickly hissed

"Nero!" that Katherine gave. He whirled to see a strange, misshapen humanoid rising from the ground, arms already lifting over its head to smash him downward.

"Shit!" he swore, leaping to the side in a roll, only to see the ground beneath his knees start to glow and another misshapen thing come out of the dirt.

"What the hell are these?" he snapped, flicking Red Queen off of his back and revving her to life.

"I don't know! Why would I?" Katherine snarled, her saw cleaver already biting into the bluish flesh of the large monsters. Nero smirked, it was a good thing if she was still speaking during combat. He'd quickly realized that that seemed to help her and continued making quips and jibes at the Hunter as they fought the monsters scattered through the nightmare. It was an easy habit for him to fall back into as it was something that he and Dante did regularly.

The fight between them and the monsters was going perfectly fine until they stopped paying attention to the small people attacking them and all lifted their arms to the sky. Nero looked up when it suddenly darkened above them and felt his heart sink into his toes. The strange space-like portal couldn't bode well for the two of them, he reached with his wings and snagged Katherine out of the way of the incoming meteors, yanking the two of them behind the slightly sturdier pillar of the giant flower and shooting one of the monsters that dared come too close. Katherine squirmed for a moment before she seemed to gather her senses out of the bloodlust.

"Thank you." she breathed before her eyes flashed and she lashed out with her own firearm, the spray clipping the monster and she took the opportunity to remove its organs from its body. They tagged out the remaining monsters before they had the chance to try the summoning shit again, though both of them were slightly winded by the time the fight was truly over. Nero shivered as the sweat started to cool on his neck in the light breeze that played over the balcony. He heard Katherine take several deep breaths, probably trying to shake the bloodlust from her mind and she hooked her cleaver on her back, straightening and flicking some of the blood from her gloves. He looked at her and then at the door ahead of him.

"Onward and upward?" he asked. She paused to light a lantern that Nero was pretty sure hadn't been there in the fighting.

"Yes." She said as she rose from the lantern and faced the unopened door that lay before them. Nero pressed them open this time and they were both surprised by the large, rather empty, library that sat before them. The devil hunter's ears caught onto the sound of dripping liquid and the body seated in the chair ahead of them did not give him a good feeling on what that liquid might be.

"I think she's dead." Nero said, slowly starting forward, noticing the way that the blood soaked into the woman's cravat and vest, trailing under her clothes to drip off the end of her fingers onto the dusty floor.

"I believe this is the Lady that the patients spoke of." Katherine whispered, she seemed inclined not to break the quiet of the room.

"Lady Maria? No offense but this lady doesn't look nearly as nice as those patients made her out to be." Nero found himself speaking in hushed tones as well, something about this silence seemed… sacred.

"She was a student of Gehrman's before she presided over the research hall, it seems she grew tired of the Hunt."

"Can't blame her." Nero scoffed, glancing at the photo on the table next to the corpse, its glass was shattered heavily, as though the owner didn't care to look at the photo beneath. "She kinda reminds me of that doll lady." he said, Katherine nodded, reaching forward to brush hair from the woman's face as she spoke

"Yes, the Doll was built in the image of-" whatever she was about to say next was cut off as a hand snapped up and grabbed Katherine's wrist, pulling her into the Lady's face

"A corpse… should be left well alone…" she released Katherine's wrist, almost lovingly and the Hunter pulled back, clearly startled by the sudden movement. Nero simply tensed, waiting to see what this woman was going to do.

"Oh I know very well," Lady Maria smiled softly "how the secrets beckon so sweetly." she grabbed a weapon from the side of the chair as she rose, taking confident steps forward. "Only an honest death can cure you now," clank, the weapon split in two "Liberate you from your wild curiosity." All of her tension was coiled in the direction of Katherine so Nero was surprised when she seemed to disappear only to reappear striking directly at him. He backpedalled, immediately set on the defensive and taking a large wound to the thigh for his miscalculation. Swearing he summoned his wings to aid in his defence as her blade and dagger struck in too quickly for Red Queen to properly keep up. He started to pull on his demonic energy far earlier in the fight than he would have liked but was provided some reprieve when Katherine got involved. He could tell though that they were both going to struggle to keep up with the speed at which this woman attacked. When she dodged, it was as though she was teleporting, a dusty trail leading from one point to another.

Nero quickly found himself Triggering, trying to keep up with the damage that he was taking, he watched Katherine slam another blood vial into her leg, eyes flashing slightly as she did. Lady Maria simply narrowed her eyes at him as he charged, wings raised to lash out. What he was not expecting was the shot to the head… he stumbled, falling to a knee, when did she get so close to him…? He felt a hand on his shoulder and heard her whisper

"Beast… let go… the dream awaits to cleanse your sickly spirit…" and then there was pain… burning, firey pain in his torso. He fell forward, coughing onto the floorboards… Why was it red…? He heard a roar in his ears, uncertain if it was his heart or Katherine. His vision was blurred as he tried to look up, Maria was farther away, her own blades stuck through her. There was no time to consider this however as his vision was taken up by a dark coat and there was another hand on his shoulder, this one more rough, demanding. He could tell that Katherine was shouting at him, but could not make out the words, she shook his shoulder once and Nero felt his head droop, what was all that pink and red beneath him…? A few words from Katherine made it through the fuzz in his ears

"I am sorry for this, but you must let your instincts drive you, we need the beast inside." there was a small prick at his arm and his vision went red…

A/N: So this one's a bit longer cause there was a point I wanted to get to and I was having fun so…

Till next time,

-Winged Element