baby, I'm not a monster - o/s five x marina.

Extra Notes: this was supposed to be happy woopsies. I promise hapoy Navrina next?

The people of the world have turned their backs against me
The corners of their eyes are all twisted up
The greatest pain to me,
Is the fact that you became the same as them

It isn't just the fact that his knuckles are cracked that drives his face with pain. It's not even that his own kind, who he is trying to help, trying to save, from a future of pain and misery, isn't understanding that he is right.

It's all because she was the first to attack, and that is the greatest blow that he has ever been dealt. Not only that - but, he can already see it forming on her face. That same disgust that she only uses when she speaks of the mogs.

Nothing he has ever experienced is as painful as that.

He doesn't mean to kill Eight. Really, he doesn't mean to kill anyone. Setrakus' orders were to leave the Garde to him. But, with the frustration blooming from Marina's betrayal, Nine's barbed words, and from the mere obtusity of the situation hissing in his ears like venomous snakes (do it, do it Five, you know you want to), he can't control himself.

Of course, everything just has to go wrong.

Five doesn't realize what's really happening until Nine yells "NO!" and it's too late to withdraw the blade. He can almost feel the vibrations of Eight's beating heart resonating through the handle, and the look that Eight gives him - the look of betrayal and complete, gut-wrenching clarity - will forever be engraved onto the back of his eyelids.

He pulls the blade out, because feeling Eight's dying heartbeat against his wrist is almost painful, and Eight stumbles away from him, mouth moving but no words coming out. Five's horrified gaze slides over to Marina, who is staring with an almost unbelieving look at Eight.

He realizes, right then and there, that what he has just done is unforgivable.

He tries to speak, opens his mouth to say her name, to try and lessen the blow, but his ankle is burning and Marina is screaming and -

Everything has fallen to pieces.

He's experienced the pain thrice before, so, overall, it isn't so bad - if it were Nine, he would have even liked it - but, he knows it's Eight, and maybe that's the worst part.

It isn't.

The worst part is her face when he approaches her - and the icy words that follow.

"Marina, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to, I swear!" He says, voice laced with an apology that will never be accepted.

"Shut up!" she snaps, hands bloody from laying on Eight's chest. "Just - stay away!"

Marina's not crying, yes. But he thinks it would be almost better if she cried - it would mean that she's still her, that she's still nice, loving, forgiving Marina. But their's a look that's terrifyingly beautiful on her - one of icy fury.

"Marina, you know I'm right! Please, I'm trying to - " he breaks off, as a wave of icy cold air bites at his skin. He begins to shiver, as frost starts to ripple out around the dirt around them. "M-marina? W-what are you doing? Stop..."

She looks at him, eyes cold and almost cloudy, and he has little time to regret bringing her attention to him before he feels a stabbing pain in his foot.

"Agh!" he yelps, ducking down to try and grab at his impaled foot. Instead, he pokes his eye out on another, long icicle jutting from the ground, and springs back, another scream of pain on his lips.

"Marina," he begs her, "stop, just please!"

He can feel the heat of her glare, and it's worse than the pain in his foot and eye and the ice that builds on his arms. The hum of a mog ship - sweet relief, backup has arrived - reaches his ears, before another voice, Six's he assumes, calls out.

"Marina, come on!"

Marina's words make his heart lurch in his chest.

"If I see you again, you traitorous bastard," she yells, and her voice (it's her voice, which makes it so much worse) is filled with unyielding ice. "I'll take the other fucking eye!"

It's been a while since we've met
Your face looks good
You got prettier, you were always beautiful in my eyes

Their next meeting is more painful than the last.

And she's so much stronger.

Not that she wasn't strong before, of course. He's always seen it in her eyes - that silent strength, that unyielding resilience - but now her legacies reflect it. And it's both wonderful and heartbreaking bunched into one.

Not to mention how beauteous a sight it is to see. He was always dumbstruck by the potent, natural beauty that Sarah held, and the fierce warrior-like beauty that Six always carried, but it's Marina's wild radiance that took him to the level of staring.

But today you look a bit different
You look especially a bit cold

Marina has obviously gotten her bearings, let her feelings of his betrayal settle in the direction of disdain, and it's terrible to behold. He never thought that he'd see her so cold, so horribly furious with an icy fire to it. It is painful and awestriking.

You cut me off right away
Your long hair flowing

Five tries to get through to her (Marina, listen, please - I'm sorry and I didn't mean to - believe me), but all he gets in return is a sliced cheek.

"Fight me!" she screams at him, anger taking her face, her eyes glassy with tears or sweat he doesn't know. She punches at him, and he takes it, and she kicks him, and he takes it - because it's too painful and he can't hurt her and he can just close his eyes and block it out because he doesn't want it to be real. "Fight me, you bastard!"

I can't, he thinks, but "I won't," he says, taking everything because he can't stand to do anything but pretend that it isn't her fighting him.

Your existence is a chronic disease, a repitition of pain
You're a lingering attachment in my heart

But she's more than just a reminder of his mistake. She's a lingering disease that won't pass. Marina's a bug that has latched onto his heart and won't leave.

She isn't his world, she is the epidemic that slowly kills his world.

Don't go, don't go, don't go, don't leave me
Don't do it, don't do it, don't do it, it's not like you

When it finally comes - the heart wrenching battle that he always expected - he tries to fight. He does. He blocks out her face and pretends she is Nine or Six (and tries to ignore it when he sees her as Setrakus Ra), but every time he blinks it's her again and she's his weakness and -

"Please," he whispers, as he cradles her against him, her blood rushing out all over his clothes.

This isn't how it was supposed to be. She was supposed to win the battle, and he was supposed to die and beg her forgiveness, and she was supposed to forgive him just before everything fell away.

But how it was supposed to go is never how it does go, and now he is sitting there with Marina dying in his arms. He pushes on her chest, hoping to somehow push all the blood back in, but the blood is on her lips and on her cheek and everywhere and everything is so red, so beautifully but terribly red.

"I love you," he says. "Don't go - I wasn't supposed to - " he breaks off with a sob, pushing his face into her hair. "Don't leave me."

But she has already left.

I think I'm sick, I think I'm sick