Warning: major character death, pain, trauma, possession, time travel, past abuse, murder, matricide


zero - invoke so much sorrow in me now

He's going to die.

Viole knows this.

Pinned down by the corpse of Reflejo, bleeding from many wounds that the thorn cannot heal fast enough, the rim of the barrel holding the corrosive liquid that would melt him away edges from falling down, the only real regret, if he could feel it, was the bleeding body of Hwaryun next to him.

No, if he is going to die, he can be honest and weep. He can be honest and mourn. He can allow himself this slip of weakness.

Truly, truly he wants to go back. Everyone was there. Warmth was there. Light was there. Without Rachel it could still be bright and he hadn't known. He hadn't known.

Viole waits for tears to come. He waits to feel sad. There is nothing.

Then Hwaryun coughs awake.

She had stood by him. Not for no reason, there is something she wants from all of this that he could never ask for. She had a desire that he lacked and he had been able to fulfill it. Or he had meant to be. "This path has reached its end," she croaks. "For many, for all. The thorn awaits its grave, my god. It will not bloom anymore."

Viole doesn't ask why. He is not built for such things even though that question had once thundered in his mind. Now after eight years his mind is mostly quiet. It hurts but being quiet is safer.

"Is there anything I can do?" is what he asks instead, gentle and searching for hope. "Can I save you, at least?"

"Maybe if you make me an irregular," Hwaryun wheezes. She's grinning with bloody teeth, clothes torn and blood oozing slowly from her stomach. She shouldn't be talking but they are different. The two of them abandoned limitations a long time ago. "This is the route the path has gone, my god. Do not struggle. Only laugh. Laugh in the face of the king who thinks he will rule forever. Who knows, maybe the god-boy will kill him with your body."

Viole doesn't laugh, as she does. He cannot laugh. He doesn't even know what smiling feels like anymore. "They're going to die."

He doesn't mean her, or them or the FUG agents, or Baragav, the beaten hound. He means his friends, Bam's friends, fighting FUG and other Regulars for an item, or the innocent Sweet and Sour who should have let him go when they had the chance. For him, though they don't know it. They'll never know it. Because they'll be dead here too, with that melting liquid. There is no way they will be allowed to walk free, not with another irregular outside who hates him, not with no reason to let them live in the first place?

Why did he even resist Reflejo in the first place? Why did he fight him? Why did he take the thorn? Why, why why?

He's thinking, he's thinking, he's feeling, no not now, not at the end please...

"They might." Hwaryun's voice chokes him from his thoughts. "You might be able to prevent it."

"How?" How can he save them? How can he keep his light shining even now?

She struggles and lifts her arms. "Give me your wish, my god. Give me your hopes, your dreams, the breath in the body, the blessing on your skin. Give up everything and set your soul adrift. Become mine. All you need is an instant of that and to pause the outside. "

He frowns, uncomprehending. Then he glances at the thorn, buzzing contentedly at his back. "It can do that?"

"You can do that," she corrects. "You won't be able to come back here, but you never could have."

"What about you?" He cares, he shouldn't, but he cares, he does. She was fair to him, she had been soft for him, master had been soft for him- oh.

"I will follow you, as you will guide me."

"No," he croaks. "No."

He doesn't want to die. He wants her to die even less.

She gestures to the wounds all over her, and the distance above. "We wouldn't make it like this, my god. You know that."

He does. The shinsu that blesses him is more of a curse now. It hurts so much. It won't lift him like he asks.

"Please, Viole," she says to him, her single eye dancing.

She has never said please before, not to him. He struggles an arm free, he struggles to drag himself and his legs free of the weight of the dead man. He drags himself over to her (humiliation is gone, he has no dignity, no need for it.) and crawls on top of her.

Like him, she has no shame, and rests his head on her collarbone. "Close your eyes and think of the thorn, that lost lonely child. It wants everything you are, it wants to take you up beyond the tower's edge, far beyond us. What do you want, my god?"

Viole swallows. He hasn't wanted… no that's a lie, he has he has. And there is one thing he has always wanted more than anything.

He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath and pulls it. The power resists. It doesn't speak, it does not have a mouth with which to speak but it resists and he pulls again. He tugs and he tugs and he doesn't let go until it bends, winds, twists into place where it belongs.

And Hwaryun lets out a quiet, easy sigh, even though it feels like she should be screaming in pain, unhappy and destroyed, she isn't. She is only peaceful and calm and it would terrify humans of any kind.

But Viole is not human and only takes the situation as what it is.

They're both going to die, so they might as well get something out of it, even if that something is fueled by nothing but spite. Spite and perhaps love, but he doesn't think he's ever been loved before.

"Take a deep breath," he whispers.

Hwaryun takes her last human breath.

And Viole shoves.

The boiling acid falls.

And it is a maelstorm of pain. All the training he has done, all the punishments, every single individual, multiple, boiling horrible way they had hurt him (and being dying makes him able to see that it was pain and that's worse), had punished him, were nothing more than gentle kisses, gentle head pats and warm embraces in comparison. It very nearly rends Viole into nothing but scraps, forced to wander the tower's shinsu in eternity forever.

But he holds on. Viole grabs on to the flow and wills it forward to its end, wills it to the dying, cooling, burning body of his guide. She's smiling, even in death. He holds to it and thinks of the people she must save, the promise she must give him.

He sees the others in that lunch room, their determination between classes, the steady laughter of people who have found something great and terrible. He thinks of Rak's booming laughter. He thinks of Khun's brimming curiosity and the honest, open concern he thinks he can hide.

Oh, Viole thinks with the little humanity he has left. Oh, I love you so much.

He doesn't die screaming, but the world goes quiet all the same.


Bam snaps awake in agony, viscous and freezing cold.

He coughs and hacks, rolling onto his bare knees (bare? He's had things to cover his legs before. They'd been ruined but he'd had pants at the very least.)

He feels a roiling sensation in his what definitely feels empty stomach and doesn't resist. He throws up. The sound is loud. His chest is burning.

Once, when he had been with her, he had gotten sick. Very sick. He hadn't known what it was at the time but she had fled from him in terror. She had returned faster than usual, with new things that had prodded him and which had helped but he'd been sick and she had never told him what happened.

Bam opens his eyes and they widen in horror.

Oh. Oh no. No no no.

He's back. He's in this cave with no master, no purpose, no friends, nothing. Nothing nothing nothing.

He cries out because there is no one to scold him. He weeps because no one can touch him. He is back but he is alone. He is back but he is empty. He is back and the boy who must have been Bam must be dead because now he feels everything again and all of it hurts.

He killed himself. He killed the boy. He is a terrible knife; he wasn't supposed to do that.

And the others… had they lived? Were they all right? Did they know? How long did his gambit with Hwaryun last, how far did it go? As long as they were all right, it will be enough. He can perish here in the cave again, it will be enough.

He kills Bam by being here he must deserve it.

But… he can't. If he doesn't go back, the tower will still hurt them. It may even succeed in killing them and he can't punish himself for failing here; nothing is sharp enough.

So he has to go back. And that means -

"Bam!" shouts from above, frantic with fear, an edge he'd never noticed before. "Bam, are you all right?"

He wheezes in reply and lets out a whimper. "R...a...chel…?"

She bolts down the rock tower, bits and pieces falling off in her haste to get to him. She doesn't knock into him, but rolls him onto his back away from the mess. "Bam!"

"R...a… ch...el…" He smiles with a grimy mouth and half-closed eyes. "You're… back…"

"Of course I am!" She sounds… puzzled, frightened, something else. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Dreamed it…" he says and closes his eyes. Something cool touches his brow and he feels her wipe down his forehead but nothing else. Everything is still burning. Everything is still hurting.

"You're gonna be okay, Bam," she tells him. "I promise."

Bam smiles but behind his eyelids, it doesn't touch his eyes. No matter how hard he tries, later on, he can't make his eyes any less disinterested and hollow.

She leaves him again later, says she's working on something important. (She was always doing something important, he realizes now that he has never been important so he doesn't hold this against her like he had the first time.) But she's brought him the softest blanket she could find and cocooned him up in it and his body is so weak that Bam doesn't particularly mind this.

He sleeps and he wakes. And when he wakes up, Bam curls into himself, fresh off of death and full of emotions he hasn't let himself feel for eight whole years.

He wants to mourn the spirit of the boy who must have died here in this cave, but it means mourning himself and he cannot, he mustn't. He mustn't let himself feel pity for the dead old boy who had been loved and tossed because then it would mean he was allowed to be loved.

He wants to be loved but he can't. He wants them alive so he doesn't. What of him is left to be hurt and ripped apart? Nothing of his body was spared, nothing of his heart was tucked away safely. All of it was left raw.

So no Viole will not mourn himself. He will not cry for the dead him on this ground or the one who died to the liquid. There is no going back. He can only cleave the way. He is only to cleave the way and find the king.

What happens after that, asks his traitorous mind. What happens to us after, Viole?

Death again probably. And again and again and again until it is done properly.

What is proper?

Why is he asking? He is not allowed to know.

No one will save him. He must save himself, but he is too empty to start. There is nothing to save.

In the loneliness, with no one and nothing, Bam does weep. And then he wipes the hollow records of his eyes and rises to his feet. Testing his legs, he begins to walk and then to run.

Only that is left to him.


She returns, often. With no sense of time all Bam knows is she's coming more and more often, bringing more and more little things.

"This is going to work, Bam," she says. "You could be chosen if this happens. Didn't you want that?"

"Mm!" he agrees, smiling at her. "We'll be able to spend lots more time together like that, right?"

"Yeah!" Her eyes don't even flicker. "But you'll have to get a job like I do. So you'll be busy with that and all the other kids. You might even forget me."

"I won't!" He won't. He can never forget her. After all, she is the reason he is like this now. He does not have to acknowledge her existence following this, but he will never forget her.

Faking is easy. He has to build up his walls again, so the emotion comes out quite without compulsion. It surprises her a little how much he cries but Bam tells her he's having awful dreams lately and they won't stop.

"But none of it's real, Bam," she tells him without asking what they are. "They're just dreams."

He nods along and smiles through his tears. "I'll be ok, Rachel, I promise!"

She believes him. Rachel would be suspicious if she had reason to be. He doesn't give her any.

There is no resentment here. The others, would they resent her? Probably, they wouldn't deserve such treatment and were taught to protest it. But he doesn't. All she is doing is using what is available and necessary. At the moment, he is available and necessary. So he will be of use to her. But this time he knows better. He will not be necessary for long.

So he will not try to be. She is only necessary to him for so long as well. So they will play pretend and this time it will be Rachel who thinks it is real.

He puts the emotion away that feels like happiness, spiteful and cruel because it does not belong to him. He continues to practice in shadows, to exercise and hunt and remember the feeling of weighted stone on his hands.

He will remember this feeling. He must recall it.

The list of people to kill is so high, after all, the list to protect even moreso.


She comes down one day, like an angel but not in white.

And suddenly, like a key opening a door to home, Bam - Viole - Bam remembers why Rachel fled from him that day.

"They chose you, Bam," she calls, delighted and strong from the top of his tower. She is bathed in the light. It casts her whole heart in shadow, her whole being. "You get to come up!"

His heart doesn't leap in delight. He feels no hope. He smiles back at her though, because he is a good tool and he is confident in his obedience. "Really?!"

"Yeah!" She gestures for him. He wonders, looking back, why she had been so excited. Was it because someone else would be caring for him so she could leave? Was it because she was free? Or was it because the tower has been (in her mind) waiting for her and she can go now, no matter what? "Climb up Bam, we need to clean you up now so you can meet her!"

Bam racks his brain to remember who "she" is as he scrambles up the stones. But he lets himself be dragged alone, lets her chop at his hair (he shyly says his ears are cold and she makes it roughly pool at his shoulders instead, a good balance she won't suspect, and rip off his sheet. He watches it go, wistful. But socks.

If he is allowed to have preferences, which he realizes in order to look normal he must, he hates pants. He despises pants. The air flow is restrictive, most of them are tight and uncomfortable, and not even pockets can get rid of just how much they itch. Leggings are fine, but socks and tights are a gift. His feet run freezing unlike the rest of him.

He lets it be for now though. His hair will grow back, soon he'll find better clothes and different people. The same people. Better people.

They won't know you, the little silver voice says in his head. They won't know you. You won't mean anything to them.

That's fine. He doubts they had cared about him as much as he cares about them. Not even Khun-ssi, surely, would be that invested in him to care across time and space. He simply wishes to be by their side again.

He has other wishes but they are inherently selfish and he does not dare to give them voice, for then he will be a dull knife and dull knives are thrown away or broken down and only one entity can do that and -

The pain lurks in skin that has not been blemished by it.

Rachel's chattering happily, the light in her eyes so beaming bright that for a moment Bam remembers why she was his precious light.

Was, is the key word. He smiles back at her. His face is used to smiling right now so it doesn't hurt, but he does not remember this part of it. He remembers her saying she was chosen and so was he. He remembers -

She finishes, he finishes and he follows her. The above in the light is not as bright as she made it sound. He can see easily and there are plenty more people, sure, but there are hardly what he recognizes as children, or even happiness. They all look worn and patchy and terrified. Their cheeks are sunken in, hollow, so like their own, more like Rachel's who has freckles. Her freckles are the part he'd liked the most.

But it is still dark. Brighter than below but still dark.

It is easy to hate a place lit up with lamps and yearn and yearn and yearn for the real thing.

Once Bam had yearned.

She lets go of his hand, he had been surprised she'd been holding it and thus had not reacted beyond keeping the same smile on his face. She frowns at him.

"What's wrong, Bam?" She grins again, mischief and roughness fighting over her face. "Are you nervous?"

Bam nods unthinking because it's what she wants to hear. He doesn't feel much of anything. He's been numb a long time, and has built it up from square one again because she's not safe either. And he knows it now. "Uhm… I don't know what to do."

Rachel smiles again and there's pride and fondness and love and a lot of other emotions Bam has never been allowed to experience. "Don't worry," she says. "Just follow my lead."

"Okay," he agrees because he trusts she will do what is in her best interests. It's just how people are, including him once upon a time.

The scenery… changes, suddenly. Green grass (he has a vivid memory of yellow yellow yellow and bitter on his tongue), flowers soft and multicolored (but rotting, rotting to the bone like stems), and paths up to a slightly big and less broken house that feels empty even to him.

There are four men surrounding a single woman. She stands in tattered clothes the way Khun-ssi stood with all the world in his hands but no way to use it.

She meets Bam's eyes with vivid versions of his own. She smiles at him.

"My little Ruth," she greets. "She's taken proper care of you after all."

She's important to him. She is… significant to who Bam was. There's a word for this, a sensation, a relation that is escaping him. What is it?

"Bow your head," Rachel hisses. "We have to be respectful, Bam."

He ignores her. He can tell that isn't that woman's desire. He does not speak, he simply continues to look at her. There's a thrumming tension in his shoulders.

"She can't control you well," muses the woman, her smile growing wide. "But I think a test is in order, to be sure."

Bam remembers the knife. It has been sitting in the back pocket of these pants.

There is no shinsu here.

Bam is suddenly certain he will not need it.

His hair prickles on the back of his neck. He pushes off lightly with a single foot when someone twitches their finger, when Rachel is nearly pushed.

This body is small and weak, malnourished and abused. But he has no limitations. And this is a test of the tower. This is a test that he will pass.

He must return to the tower. He will return to the tower.

All that stands in his way will be cut down.

"You really made it too loyal, Rachel."

He doesn't see Rachel go stiff, but he remembers her doing it.

"That needs to be fixed," says the woman.

Bam pays attention with half an ear because whoever this woman is, she's an idiot. He is not loyal to Rachel at all. You can't pick up a knife you tossed aside after all.

But then she raises her hand and a sickening feeling fills Bam's stomach and throat.

"Ruth," the woman sings. "Kill them all. Ignite."

His world burns red for a second time in his memory and he feels his mouth stretch beyond a smile, splitting, splitting. Teeth poke holes, heat races up his skin and he rushes forward.

Every line of shadows is an enemy. Every line under his vision is cut. And there are many lines up ahead.

Bam, unwilling, unheeding but necessary, does so.

The woman sings behind him, and her song follows him as his mind sinks, sinks, sinks down, lost in the routine of fighting.

Mother, he thinks, mouth red, fingers red. Mother, sorrowful mother, hollow mother, your wish may be granted.

But only if mine is first.


He wakes up in one of the huts. Something stinks of smoke. His clothes are clean despite what should have been death covering them. He is clean. He is unharmed.

"Welcome back to life, little one."

The woman's voice is melodic and beautiful and colder than Khun-ssi ever considers his eyes. "Good morning, miss," he greets with a smile. His mouth aches but the ache is fading. "Where is Rachel?"

"Fled," she says, smiling at him. Bam starts to sit up immediately. "Don't worry, my Ruth, you'll be able to catch up to her just fine. You always have been able to reach whatever you'd like, you know this."

"... I see. Thank you ma'am." He does not understand, not yet, but he will save his guesses for a later date. He must go. He will go.

He rises to his feet, steady and certain. She raises a hand to him. "One more thing, my little Ruth." He locks eyes with his own golden gaze once again. "I am weary, little monster. I am so very weary. I think you will be able to do it. I made you for such."

He remembers this, as if from a dream, confused and too in a hurry to remember all of his manners. But Bam is in no hurry this time. He understands now. He steps towards her and places a hand on her chest.

"You have to mean it, my Ruth," says his mother. "Now, once more, ignite for me."

The world turns red and he shuts his eyes to her death.

It is gruesome.

Bam wipes himself clean with various rags and thinks nothing of it. He has no choice. Outside, pyres are burning, stinking of meat as they die.

The knife clasps his hands together in gratitude and in prayer and sets to burning the rest. Anything useful he puts in his pockets. There's a better knife here. The darkness makes the smoke worse but he doesn't cough.

At the hole, the entrance to the cave he'd been stuck in for years, his eyes water from the smoke. Then, carefully, he climbs down, determined not to make a sound.

She's far ahead of him now, but she's slow. She has not run around as he has, has not built up her body with technique and stretches as he has, dutifully repeating his master's teachings solo.

But he knows where she is going. He starts kicking rocks. He calls her name.

"Rachel!" he shouts, fear filling his voice but not his eyes. It's almost over. She turns and tries to run faster. She's panting. He isn't.

He's moving and moving and he grabs her ribbon like before. "Why did you leave me there?" he shouts, terror and a whine filling his voice, just so. "Where are you going?"

There's something in her eyes. It's not a new something, but it's steady like steel. "I've told you Bam." Her voice wavers a bit, but she doesn't look away. He can respect this even if her words are hollow. "I'm going to climb the tower. I'm sick of this dark world. I'm going to see the stars."

"With…" He wavers. "Without me? Why?"

"You can't go," she says. "You weren't chosen after all. You did… do you remember what you did?"

And here is the moment. Here is where he can cement to her that he is still the child she used to get here. Or he can bid her farewell respectfully, as a person is owed. She did nothing wrong after all. She only tossed aside a useless weapon.

Her actions nearly led to the deaths of your precious lights, he reminds himself.

That is true. But that has not happened yet. And it will not happen so long as he breathes.

He shifts a bit. There's a sparkle of light glowing behind Rachel's left ear. "I did something bad, didn't I?" he says softly, lowering his lashes.

Rachel smiles at him, gentle. "You did. You need to wait here for me because you did that. You lost your chance to be chosen. I'll bring you up with me once I'm back, okay?"

He hides his face from a moment, trying to school it, trying to search for the contrition, the guilt, the pain she wants, that will soothe her, but he cannot muster it. She is trying to use him again. This is so terrible. This is so poorly executed. If he could feel, he'd feel insulted.

And he lifts his head. Bam watches Rachel stiffen as he says, "Liar." He doesn't pause when he says, "But I suppose the time to lie to each other has ended, hasn't it?"

He smiles at her without it hurting. "After all, the door has opened."

The fear on her face makes something curdle in his stomach. "You… you're not Bam."

"That is correct." Bam shifts a little and presses a hand to her cheek. "I am not Bam. Therefore, I will not hinder you in your climb, Miss Rachel."

The light engulfs them both and a weight leaves Bam's shoulders. He misses it already.


A/N: I was supposed to stop but I am not. Ellie! Ellie this is for you specifically! You enabled this, you get it! :D So this is in the same universe as someone out there loves you, but divergent strictly from the workshop battle itself. It's safe to assume any concepts canon here are canon there and vice versa. Please heed all warnings and tags carefully. Thank you!