#another one for goretober! sorta

[ahkaraii]

[ff15] for the price of an arm (3666 words)

(spiritual sequel to my fancomic here, cw: gore)

"My, my," said the dismissive voice that still haunted Gladio's dreams, over a decade since. "Another one come for a rematch?"

"No." Gladio could not see Gilgamesh, but he knew the old bastard was watching him. "Not unless you don't give the Marshal back."

"The Marshal...?" A low, echoing laugh bounced around the bridge, and was then lost to the fog beyond. "Oh, the little lion? I'm afraid I bested him, long ago... He has belonged to me, since. And now, I have reclaimed him."

"Give him back," Gladio rumbled, voice like gravel. "Or I'll take all of your little arms, and then your fucking head."

The laugh echoed, fainter still, until there was a still sort of silence, broken only by a hair-raising whisper. "You may try, Shield of the Chosen King. But you shall not succeed."

"Show yourself," Gladio said, coldly. "And I shall prove you wrong, Corpse-Stealer."

It was only years spent fighting in the dark that allowed Gladio the reflexes to parry the blade that sought his head, and the years prior to that the ability to recognize the youth attached to the familiar body.

"Cor--?!"

It was undoubtedly the Marshal, but his once-lined face was now clear of scruff and weariness. His eyes were sharp, bright, and filled with a vicious determination Gladio had only ever seen aimed toward their enemies.

"Cor! Wait--"

The man did not appear to hear him, already in transition to perform a flawless gyaku-inazuma giri, and after Gladio hastily parried that opening onslaught, a tsuki thrust that nearly tore through Gladio's throat, managing only to avoid being skewered by leaping as far back as his legs would allow him, though of course Cor followed through flawlessly, relentlessly, and Gladio swiftly found himself on the defensive, gasping through disbelief and then raw, unhindered fury.

"You DARE!" Gladio howled. "You DARE steal his face!"

"His face belongs to me," tittered that ancient, odious voice, bouncing off the walls to the beat of Cor's Kotetsu against Gladio's Genji blade. "All of him does. And you shall not take him from me, unless, of course...you best me."

Gladiolus had bested the Blademaster once, and he could do it again. But it was quite a different story to be fighting against the puppet-corpse of his teacher, his friend. "Cor, don't do this," Gladio spared the breath to say. "Cor, don't make me do this!"

Cor did not appear to hear him, and through sinking dismay and true grief, Gladio knew Cor would never hear him, for Cor was likely already dead. Cor Leonis had said his goodbye, and everyone had respected it-- even Gladio had respected it, in the end. But he'd come down here to reclaim Cor's body and bring it back to Lucis. Bring it back home. He'd meant to bury the Marshal next to King Regis, as Gladio would want someone to bury him next to Noct, when his time came.

He'd envisioned having to fight the Blademaster for it, but he had never imagined he'd have to ruin Cor's corpse to win it back.

"You are dishonourable--" Gladio screamed. "You are despicable--"

"I am, at that," the voice may have whispered, but Gladio was fully concentrated on Cor's blade, the whistle of it before it nearly took out his legs; the metallic vibration of it when it parried his own massive katana; the reach of it, always further than one might expect.

Cor did not fight silently, for all that he did not speak a word. He grunted and gasped and growled, and it felt awfully like he lived again, for it was his selfsame voice, the voice Gladio had grown up listening to and learning from, fighting with and fighting for. It was both a gift and a gutwound, to hear it again, in the flesh.

It could have been a shorter fight-- intense, furious, but inevitably lethal-- had Gladio not kept missing opportunities to cleave the man in two. He could not bear it. A part of him longed to prolong this, if only to keep the fiction going. That Cor still lived, that Cor could still come back alive.

Unfortunately, the longer Gladio drew it out, the more tired he became. And Cor, in the undeathly grasp of Gilgamesh, did not.

He became faster, and faster, and impossibly faster, until Gladio knew that if he did not end this soon, if he did not end this now, then it was Gladio that would be cleaved into pieces, and Cor-- who had not once batted an eye at carnage, who had not once looked upon a fallen enemy with regret-- Cor would simply end him without giving a shit, and then Gladio would be dead, and all this would be for naught at all.

Cor Leonis was dead, Gladio told himself through glassy eyes and a swiftly clogging nose, and this? This was just a cruel echo. It would be kinder to silence it, and let it rest a memory.

So, without further hesitation, Gladio closed himself off, and with one sure thrust, impaled Cor's body with his very own Genji blade, twisting it to ensure he'd severed that great man's spine and abdominal aorta, then up to cleave through three ribs and into his lungs and hopefully his heart, so his end would be swift.

So his end would be sure.

But of-fucking-course the Immortal refused to die easy. Cor made a truly awful noise, choking on his own blood, body twitching with the aftershocks of an immense blow, still struggling, still attempting to swing his sword, which Gladio barely stopped with his other hand.

"Damn it," Gladio choked, through messy tears. "It's okay, Cor. Let go."

The man screamed wetly, gagging, jerking futilely against Gladio's hold. He was half-collapsed on Gladio already, legs limp and lifeless. But even still he refused to die, let alone let go of his sword, which came to rest on Gladio's shoulder, sharp side trying in vain to dig toward his neck, even now, when it was past the realm of unlikely into the sad reality of the impossible.

"It's all right," Gladio whispered. "Shh. Shhh. You can rest now."

Cor shuddered, twitched, and let out a rasping exhale, that seemed to last an age. Blood kept bubbling up his mouth, out his nose, and this close Gladio could see the burst blood vessels in his eyes, making the blue of them all the brighter, even as that inimitable gaze clouded, unfocused, and seemed to still half-lidded, far away.

His sword finally slipped out of his grasp, and clattered unceremoniously to the ground.

For a long while Gladio couldn't speak through his tears. The hand holding the Genji blade was soaked with Cor's blood, with his spilled flesh, and Gladio couldn't find the will to remove it, to further damage Cor's body with it. He pulled Cor close instead, tucking his old friend's face into his chest, shuddering through his grief and processing his rage.

"I'll kill you for this," Gladio promised wetly. "I will fucking desecrate you for this."

"You may try," the Blademaster said, finally showing himself at the other end of the bridge, both armless and unarmed. "I may even welcome it."

Gladio ran a gentle hand through Cor's bloodied hair, and impulsively kissed the top of it, like he remembered Cor doing, once, when he'd been six or seven and he'd asked Uncle Cor for a bedtime story, and he'd eagerly listened to the Marshal stumble through what was more a mission report than a proper fairytale, talking about some young punk going down to Hell to fight some big tough guy with a weird accent, to prove himself worthy of his King. And Gladio, who even at that age feared being unworthy above all else, had anxiously asked And he did, didn't he, Uncle Cor? And Cor had quirked that small, sad, private smile that he showed only to Gladio and Gladio's dad and their King, and then kissed the top of his head and said Sure, champ, 'course he did.

'Course he did.

Gladio gently laid Cor's body on the ground, dislodging the Genji blade from his sternum as carefully as he could. It was impossible to pull out the two-meter long blade elegantly, or even respectfully, not without the King's magic to simply dispel it as he would have preferred, but Gladio did his utmost to do it without messing Cor up more than he had to. He ached to throw the damn sword away and simply grab Cor's corpse and run with it, abscond with it, away from this traitor's cesspit of a bridge and finally lay it to rest where it deserved to be-- but another louder, righteous, and infinitely angrier part of him needed to take the Genji blade-- originally Cor's blade, and now forever the blade that had finally ended him-- and skewer that dishonourable, hateful, and pathetic wraith of a creature at the end of that bridge. If not for Cor's sake, then Gladio's own; for the Blademaster was, if legend served, ancestor to his own blood, traitor to his own line, and therefore Gladio was the last of that longwinded legacy, the last Shield, and if it was anyone's duty to end this farce of a trial, then was is his own.

Gladiolus Amiticia stood tall, and readied his bloodied blade with the grim resolve of a man ready to face his death and walk out alive.

Gilgamesh didn't say a word. He'd said all he needed to, over two thousand years of projected self-loathing, through cruel whispers and claimed corpses shambling in the dark, patiently waiting for his own end, waiting for just this moment.

The tension between the two warriors rose like a fetid odor, permeating a grave. Only one of them would leave here alive, and increasingly it seemed it would be Gladio, for Gilgamesh had made no move to summon either arms or weapons.

"Take out your sword already, you lowly piece of shit," Gladio demanded, coldly. "Or die without one."

Gilgamesh tilted his head slowly, gesturing towards Cor's corpse, cooling before him. "You've already taken it," he said, simply.

Rage enveloped Gladio. He'd killed defenseless men before, but only in the heat of battle; to kill a traitorous kin-killer like this would bring him no satisfaction. Hell, it might even bring him shame, and that pissed him right the fuck off. That even now, filled with so much grief and fury and resolve, he could still lose against this wretched ghost, because winning against a thing determined to die without a fight was no victory at all.

"Arm yourself, Blademaster!" Gladio roared, swinging the massive Genji blade, splattering drops of Cor's lifeblood upon the bridge.

"I have none left," the ghost said, mildly, shrugging his great shoulders bereft of limbs. "Claim my head, Gladiolus Amiticia. It is yours."

"You vile, repulsive--" Gladio snarled, incandescent with rage. "You dishonour my name, your name, the name of the man who you just made me kill-- the lives of my father, my father's father, and all the kings the Amiticia have served--"

"Yes," the Blademaster interrupted calmly, "That's right."

"Pathetic," Gladio spat. "You're pathetic. You are less than a man. I renounce you as Shield of the Founder King. I renounce your trial as anything more than worthless, wretched--"

"That is your right," the Blademaster agreed, placidly.

Gladio screamed, and in his mind, he rushed him. Genji blade met Genji armour and parted it like butter, revealed the putrid insides of a man long since dead; another swing beheaded the man and spilled his brain across the bridge; his red-soled boots stomped that skull to shards, mercilessly, pounding it into the ground, into less than dirt, into less than a memory; in his mind, his heart thoroughly disowned that heartless cur to oblivion.

In reality, Gladio only screamed. And then, heaving like a beast, he gathered up his spite and spat on the ground. "If you will not fight," the Last of the Amiticia swore, "then you will rot here, forevermore."

Gilgamesh's glowing eyes tracked him, quietly, then he bent his head forward, bent his whole body forward, into a bow. "Yes, Amiticia," that dry, ancient, patiently undying voice said, "I know."

Gladio could bear this no longer. He turned, blade in hand, seeking Cor's corpse--

Only to find Cor struggling to his knees.

"Cor?!" Gladio choked, and for a moment his grief and rage split him, for he could not kill Cor a second time, a second time would surely end him--

"Clarus...?" Cor's eyes were still bloodshot but the blue shone through, electric, and violently alive; his face was young, bereft of age lines and beard; he looked like he was half Gladio's age instead of double. "What...?"

"Cor!" Gladio fell to his knees. "You're alive!"

"You're not Clarus," Boy-Cor said, voice oddly-pitched. "Who're you?"

"I'm his son," Gladio said, through tears. "Fuck. God damn it. You're alive, Cor." He impulsively gathered Cor up in his arms, and the kid-- God! Cor was at most a fucking teenager!-- squirmed, uncomfortable, looking confused as all hell.

"As if I'd die in a place like this," Cor said, gruffly, and then he jerked up, "Wait, son?! Y'mean, you're his da?" He pushed Gladio away, squinting up at him suspiciously. "No fuckin' way... you ain't Marshal Amiticia. He's bald, and you got more hair than a goddamn Ronin!"

Gladio couldn't help but laugh, wetly-- even through his confused joy and skewered grief, hearing Cor speak like a feral brat was something else.

"...unless that's a wig? Uh, sir? Shit."

But Gods above, what if this was an illusion? Gladio's whole self shuttered at the thought. He wouldn't put it past that old ghost. He was vile enough for it, Gladio now knew.

"If this is a lie," Gladio murmured, tracing Cor's wary face with his eyes, thinking this might be the last time, "then I swear on my life, I will cut off your legs and piss on your mask, Blademaster."

Cor's eyes widened, narrowed, and shuttered in quick succession. "Well, that's gross," he said, tense-like, eyes skittering over to the Genji blade, thrown aside in Gladio's disbelief-- then he stared at something beyond Gladio's shoulder. "Wait, did'you actually kill him?!"

Gladio automatically followed Cor's line of sight, thinking he'd see the Blademaster as he had been seconds before-- but the fucker was no longer standing there, head bowed or otherwise. He'd vanished.

"Shit," Gladio swore, lunged for his sword-- immediately realized Cor had taken the Genji blade with him, and turned to snatch the Kotetsu instead-- and was on his feet an instant later, ready for a fight. "God damn it--"

"Ramuh's balls--" Cor piped up. "You fuckin' did!"

Cor had fearlessly loped on over to where the Blademaster had once stood, all two meters of the Genji blade casually resting on his shoulders like it belonged there, instead of the Kotetsu he'd carried by his side for forty years-- and then he was bending down, was the sword too heavy?-- no, Gladio realized abruptly, Cor was bending down to grab a familiar silver thing.

"This is his mask, ain't it? Goddamn..." Cor looked very small at the end of that immense bridge. "You beat me to it, huh."

"...I don't think he can die," Gladio said, uneasily. "He's probably hiding somewhere." He resisted the urge to spit and say 'like cowardly fucker', and instead adjusted his hold on Kotetsu, its smaller size unfamiliar to his hands.

"Maybe," Cor said, but he didn't sound convinced. "Shit...if only I'd been a little faster, I could've gotten him first." He looked down at the mask like it had impaled him, like it had skewed him straight through and had watched him drown in his own blood.

Gladio knew that look, because that's the same look Cor had had, as he'd died in Gladio's arms.

Gladio felt the unreality of the situation finally descending upon him. "Hey, kid," he said, low and slow. "What's the last thing you remember?"

"I was running away from this," Cor said quietly, down at the mask in his hands. Then he squinted up at Gladio. "Sure don't remember you, though. Sir. Did you come down for me 'cause Clarus said somethin'?" His lower lip stiffened, and there was an unmistakable wet sheen to his eyes. "I had it handled, sir."

Gladio's heart was hurting something awful. This wasn't the Marshal he remembered. That inimitable man-- the Cor Leonis that had indulged Gladio's love of fairytales, who had kissed his brow goodnight, who had taught him how to fight, whose last words to him had been 'Y'know, Gladio, I think I've finally earned myself a goddamn vacation'-- that immense, amazing, larger than life man was dead.

So, what was this mockery before him? The soul Gilgamesh had defeated and claimed, forty some years ago, now returned to its old body?

"I know it was disrespectful, sir--" Cor said, stiffly, misinterpreting Gladio's expression. "I know this Trial is only for Shields of the Amiticia line, but-- I can do it, sir, I was doing just fine--"

"All of this is a farce," Gladio said, hollowly.

"No, I can prove myself worthy!" Cor said loudly, desperately, and Gladio was reminded of himself, thinking that being a worthwhile Shield to his King was all he'd ever wanted or would ever want, that fighting some big tough guy could grant him that and more. "I can do it--! I'll try again, I'll beat him, I'll prove it--"

Gladio felt something heavy press against his chest. If this was Gilgamesh's last fuck you to his descendants, or, worse, if it was his idea of a fucking consolation prize--

"Let me try again," Cor said, firmly, holding the mask out like Gladio could summon the Blademaster with it. "I'll show you, sir. I'll show you I can do it."

Gladio's frustration was hardly this kid's fault. Well, it was only Cor's fault insomuch as he'd jaunted on down here as a brat, gotten his ass kicked and his soul snatched, then come back down for seconds when he was too old to care if he lived or died. But it wasn't this kid's fault, anymore than it was Noct's fault he'd gotten saddled with a prophecy that wanted him dead and he'd chosen to fight it for as long as he could, before finally succumbing to it, back straight and head held high.

Gladio had hopefully outgrown his knee jerk reaction of yelling at dumb kids for making dumbass decisions, and he liked to think he'd soon ease into the calm melancholy of a man used to outliving those he loved. Like Cor himself had. The Cor of his memories, now forever laid to rest.

And yet Cor-the-kid was still staring up at him, refusing to cry, looking as stiff and proud and fierce as ever, waiting for him--for Gladio, of all people-- to denounce him.

So he chose not to.

"You did do it," Gladio said, gently. "Cor, you completed the trial, and then some. You are more than worthy to be a King's Shield, or Sword, or soldier--whatever you wanna be."

"What I want is a rematch," Cor insisted, looking more and more like he was gonna fight Gladio for it.

"Maybe later," Gladio said. Maybe never, he thought. Gods. He didn't know if Cor could even leave Taelpar Craig, or if his body would collapse like the walking corpse it should be, without Gilgamesh's magic holding it together.

"Sir," Cor said, edging on the line of begging. "I can't go back empty handed like this. I'd rather die than live with the shame of it."

"Take the mask, then," Gladio said, with an exhausted finality in his voice. "It's there because you defeated him, in your own way."

"...you ain't gonna piss on it? Sir?" Cor said, suspiciously, holding it close like he was protecting it.

If you die as we leave this place, I sure fucking will, Gladio thought, but said aloud, "I'd gotta drink some water, first. You thirsty?"

"What the fuck, sir," Cor said as respectfully as he could, which, at this time, was not much.

"I'm joking," Gladio said, though he really wasn't. "I'm not about making some instant ramen, though. After a meal--" Cor's last, perhaps, "--then I'm leaving here, for good. You comin', or you stayin'? Your choice, Leonis."

He'd come down here for Cor's body, but if Cor truly wanted to stay here, forever fighting a disgraced demigod whose hobby was making undying warriors out of decent men-- if that was truly his idea of a good afterlife, then, hell, Gladio wasn't going to force him. He respected Cor that much, even if this wannabe Valhalla was, in his personal opinion, as disrespectful as it could get.

Cor's rumbling stomach interrupted his thoughts. The kid turned a little red, and it broke the spell of Gladio's melancholy some, to see that. "Hungry, huh?"

"I could eat," Cor admitted, with a stiff little shrug. "What kinda flavour y'got, sir?"

Even though it was far more difficult to travel light enough to fight on the go without the magic of the Armiger, Gladio still made sure to carry at least one of his favourite meals with him in a backpack. For this journey, he'd packed exactly two Cup Noodles: one for him, and one for Cor's memory. He'd left it at the fireplace just outside this final room, alongside the waterproof tarp he'd brought to put Cor's body in-- though now, Gods willing and Gilgamesh be damned, Cor might just walk out on his own.

"Beef," Gladio said, and was gratified by Cor perking up, as he hoped he would. "You okay with that?"

"Yes, sir," Cor said, and quietly admitted, "It's, um. That's my favourite."

"Well, ain't that something," Gladio said, instead of saying, I know. "You comin', then?"

"Yes, sir," Cor said, and even if this was Gilgamesh's last laugh, or his last apology, then Gladio would take it, because Cor was worth it, Cor had earned it.