Chapter Text
You stumble into the church hall heavy with exhaustion but satisfied with blood beads.
The Lost creatures have given you almost no chance to escape. Although, it's partly your fault for being a cocky bastard, hoping that killing them will make your next expedition in the area easier, but no. One Lost becomes two, then multiplies itself into four, and now the cocky bastards are them.
No matter, you already possess your vital agenda anyway: refilling blood beads.
"You…" Coco scans your defeated figure as she retrieves the bag, "… look worn out."
It's a nice wording, given that it comes from her.
"I'm fine. It's nothing." You assure her. Bruises are the worst from the ambush and it will not take a day to heal itself. This trip is far from the worst that you already journeyed. The next one might be.
Coco seems want to protest but shakes her head instead. A habit of hers. You know it yourself—you're quite a lot to handle. She continues, "Thanks again. Go to Rin. You're periodic expedition is soon anyway."
"Ah, right, that."
Sucessors. Those who contain the Queen's relics into their body to keep her from reviving. These revenants are the foundational pillars of the Gaol, the world within the Red Mist. The duty entrusted to you is one of absolute importance: to monitor their state and keeping them from their frenzy. For the three years of your term, never have they displayed any sign of going astray.
They stay in their crypts, asleep.
It's the quarter part of the year, which means you'll have to take on a routine expedition to ensure their slumbering states are undisturbed. As you trudge to Rin's workshop, you think of the perilous path filled with Lost to get to their respective nests.
"Hey," Coco calls. You look at her. "How's your memory?"
"Nothing," You answer. Coco nods and leaves you alone after.
Nothing except the words leave this to me before unbearable pain takes over.
"Murasame, my blade got chipped again!" You burst into the workshop. The woman in demand swivels for you to witness the frustration on her face. Clearly, you've earned her irk once again.
"Again?! How many times have you—no. I'm not keeping track anymore." Still, despite her outburst, she automatically takes the sword from your hands. The gesture is seamless that it's second nature to her.
To assuage her annoyance, you pull out a retro game tucked safely from your pocket. A rare find among the dwindling loots of the decimated city center. "Peace offering?"
She swipes it from your grasp. "Peace accepted."
With a huff, she begins her work on sharpening the weapon's blade. Clearly, it has seen better days but your attachment to its crimson edge knows no end. The mere thought of being separated from it is torture.
"Make it sharper. I'll be leaving tomorrow."
"So you say," Rin murmurs, "How about your blood veil?"
"In perfect condition."
Then, Rin glances at you. A foreshadowing of a topic that she's reluctant to raise. She asks, "Will you be okay?"
"With my sword in your expert hands, why wouldn't I be?"
"You know that's not what I'm talking about."
Yes because you are an expert at ignoring the anxiety plaguing your chest. Three years of waking up as a revenant with zero intact memories and no progress of finding a vestige, it's enough to put you in a venomous spiral. Coco and Rin fill the gaps to the best of their ability yet there's a limit to their anecdotes. There is still this yawning blackness in your mind.
You meet Rin's hesitant gaze and offer her an assuring smile. "You know that they're in great condition."
Of course, Coco and Rin are like because the very Successors you are about to visit have been their friends after all.
"Will you be visiting Louis too?"
Louis, the one buried in the rubble of the provisional government. He sleeps like a hibernating king on the throne.
It's the first sight you see when you opened your eyes.
"Duty demands it," You tell her, "I can't overlook even one."
With her finishing touch, Rin wipes off the dust accumulated from the weapon's maintenance. She lifts it up to examine any more flaws and there is nothing to see anymore. Its blade glints a beautiful shade of red. Rin is satisfied with a hum and hands the polished armament to you.
"Be careful, okay?"
You take the crimson blade.
"Of course."
The chapel used to brim with activity—this much, you know.
It always seem so… big. There's a bar stationed in the hall yet, between the four of you, barely anyone uses it. The destroyed outlooking even has its set of benches, designed to make the viewing easier. Sofas are arranged to accommodate a big group, for entertainment or a briefing area. There's a makeshift bed created for someone who preferred sleeping in this large place. Lastly, the desk who clutter transcends its boundaries with documents splayed carelessly and books piling on top of each other.
Coco, Rin, or even Davis have never dared to lift a finger on a single book seemingly littered across the hall. Only you challenge to unravel its pages and lose yourself into the unending scribbles of research. Notes on blood beads. Editiorials on the current state of Vein. Even small stanzas of poetry. Whoever owns the off-shelved library is a master of words.
It's a lie to deny its author is not Louis.
Tales from Coco and Murasame (and occasionally, Davis too) tell your Louis is a person obsessed with knowledge, driven by service to the better welfare of revenants within the mist. You remember looking at him for the first time in this life and wonder how he'll judge the anarchy you yourself have woken up to.
You did try to talk to him sometimes, in front of the lonely throne of his, but it feels strange for all the wrong reasons. The one-sided conversations come to you as repulsive, offending,… and perhaps, sad. Discourse with him will surely be interesting.
You were close with him. Coco remarks off-handedly to you one day, in the rare moments where her lips are loose with nostalgia. Coco doesn't shy away from reality, barrages you with unfiltered truth, yet when your memories is brought up, she speaks omissions flawlessly. You hate the she mourns you (for you?) when you're in front of her.
He looks out for everyone. Rin mentions. It's what makes him different from other people. From that you definitely believe her. His motivations alone are derived not for his own assured source of blood but of others, and you can't help the vestiges of admiration blooming in your chest. Comfort, it seems, is one way to describe the one who rests on the throne.
To you, he's only a person passed from words of mouth. A man stitched from the traces of other people. To you, you can only patch him up with secondhand description. They tell that, to him, you've been a bit special. It's frustrating for no matter how deeper you delve into your consciousness, the name Louis doesn't wake memories.
Only feelings you can't name.
You've been in your own research. Your investigation whose sole lead is the sleeping Successors in their crypts.
You can't exactly wake them up, can you?
"I'm off," You tell the two women. "Won't be long, I'll be back."
You don't see the expression on their faces as they wish you a safe journey.
You meet Louis Amamiya in the eeriness of the cave and he promises you loyalty.
You remember the way his body loosens to vulnerability as he lowers his sword. He magnetizes your gaze with his soft burgundy irises, poses himself as the saving light in the despair of the cave. He tells you "Don't worry, I won't stab you in the back." In the world where you're nothing but a husk of no memory, his words have worked like magic.
How ironic, isn't it? You want to tell him, in that twisted sense of humor, as his blade pierces deep in your chest. Clarity barely clutches through the storm of your sanity. And there, his red weapon is stained with your blood turned blue. An annoying contrast. The azure blood of a monster tainting his blade.
"Leave this to me," he murmurs. A kiss, a goodbye, and a promise wrapped in four words.
He viciously rips out the steel and it's the final nail to the coffin. You fall to the unforgiving stone with a thud that sounds like guillotine sealing your death.