#isola event: mistified (cyor)

[amoirsetpacis]

★ --;; Laughter, cold and harsh and horribly, horribly familiar in a way Vash desperately wishes it weren't, rings and reverberates through the fallen mist in a way that sends ice through his nerves and veins, sets a fire under the soles of his feet. All at once he's alone again in the veil of it all, and looking around wildly, trying to hone his senses in on any one point, leaves him still with the only option he's been able to take for so much of his life; run.

Towards it this time instead of away, despite the overwhelming dread seeping through his lumps and heart and lungs, filling them like so much cement trying to forcefully grind him to a halt. He doesn't let it, though-- he's here, that much Vash's successor had told him, that much Vash had been trapping tightly beneath his ribcage in the hopes that that fear would stay there, quiet, if only for a few more days. Until distance could be put, somehow, an excuse to try and rally himself together.

Seems he isn't getting the chance to do so.

The heavens fall out of the blank nothingness; as though the high rises of the city have been washed away with the damp there are no explosions to be had as starships that should not be here roar into existence, as they struggle to prevail against the inevitable collision with unforgiving earth, as they scream with the impact. They blip rapidly in and out of existence, distort themselves, as though they know they should not be here but have on other option other than to remain no matter how much they fight against it.

The laughter echoes again. A bullet rings, millimeters from his ear at zips by. Heart in his throat, Vash turns.

@cerebralbleu > @punishercross

[revivalbeast]

Her breath comes in deep heaves as she sprints through the mist, her new clothes and shoes muddied and and torn as she keeps saying "No, no, nonononono-" This place was supposed to be safe and they shouldn't be coming for her but they seem to be coming for her as though she's him but she's not him and that's somehow worse than fighting them.

They're glitchy and they scare her because it's wrong and she's not supposed to be under attack and they shouldn't be working with the people who want to shoot her but they are and the mist hurts and she feels the bullet rip through her one after the other and she falls over in front of the nice fox she met.

She gets up, blood coming from her mouth as her head reforms.

"...I don't like that." She mutters, shaking her head. His name...

She can't remember, but she spits out a tooth as it grows back.

"That's embarrassing. They shot me in front of you. That's really embarrassing." Her hair grows back and her forehead reforms and the bullets are pushed out of her chest as the giant bugs and men with guns surround them.

@soulsbelow -> CYOR 2024 -> Mistified

[railheist]

"No, don't —"

Maria holds out an arm, not wanting Yumine to get any closer to the group.

"They're not gonna... Yumine, you don't understand."

"That there..." She points at the mountain. "That there was my hideout. I was a train robber. They are not gonna help us."

The blue-haired Maria, her companion, and the younger Mister Blue are ushered inside by the man standing watch. They take the hefty saddlebags off the horse and head deeper into the mine.

Even from a great distance, there's the telltale jingle of coins coming from the saddlebags...

Maria holds her breath and prays they don't come back outside.

It doesn't matter how young Maria is or what color hair and outfit she wears. Even in their short time together, Yumine is surprised to see a younger Maria. Just what on earth was happening? First her Handler and now this?

"Maria...?" When she looks to her friend, it's evident that she is just as lost as her. Was it safe to approach? Younger Maria wouldn't attack would she?

"Perhaps they can help us. You're injured."

[amoirsetpacis]

★ --;; This isn't.... it's not new, but that doesn't stop the rapid descent of mist and fog from striking a chill through the entirety of Vash's body. If anything, after the few moments it takes for the recognition to settle in, that same recognition is exactly what makes the hair on the back of his neck stand up. The sudden flood of it, roiling and descending as though in a dream, is familiar in a way he so much wish it wasn't.

"Just once," Vash huffs quietly to himself, as if trying to distract himself from the buzzing of his nerves beneath his skin, "Just once, could I catch a break?"

So much pain, blinding light. A memory like his is both a blessing and a curse, so many things so crystal clear-- it had only been a short time ago, at least sin comparison to the rest of his life, but the memory of the last time this mist had cut through bone and sense still sits so vividly behind his eyelids.

He doesn't know where anyone else is. Doesn't know what they might see. What might see them.

Moving. He's got to move. If he keeps standing here as he is, he won't find anyone. He's good at moving, he reminds himself. Good at channeling movement into his feet, quickly, instead of the spiraling of so many thoughts.

But as he does, it doesn't take long for voices to be heard. Or-- a voice, rather. Stern and harsh and biting. The sound of a bullet ricocheting off the pavement.

Vash's feet choose the direction to carry him in, without second thought.

@punisheye

[railheist]

Enough of the fog clears for Maria to spot the handler, hiding behind the tree like the skunk that he is. If he tries to run for it, she should have a clean shot, but first she'll find coverage like Yumine tells her to.

"Watch out!"

Maria ducks behind a rock right in time for the shots to whizz past her. She takes out some bandages from her pocket, wraps up her shoulder, and readjusts her rifle.

"Give up now! You're outnumbered!" she yells. He's got to run out of bullets sooner or later!

(And she hopes that it's sooner. While the Calamity is powerful, she's starting to run out of bullets herself.)

PERFECT, but the handler has moved to hide at a better spot. He's working on nursing that arm of his. "Maria! Are you okay?" Yumine calls from above. "Please find coverage." It's the only warning Maria gets when Yumine uses her gigantic wings to create a large gust of wind in hopes of clearing some of the fog.

"DAMMIT." The handler is revealed, hidden behind one of the trees. Now that he has nowhere to hide, he's shooting at both the avian being as well as Maria. He fires several rounds.

[amoirsetpacis]

★ --;; No matter how many times they've tried to have this talk, it never feels as though it manages to sink in. Never feels as though the part of him that carries that old weight will ever learn to put it down in its entirety, a shackle the key can never seem to keep open. And he's sorry for that, too; that no matter how much he wants to be able to move past it, to enjoy the time they have together, that this sadness looms there behind him, silent but seemingly forever insurmountable with its existence.

Of course, he wants to say-- but it gets stuck where his throat is tight in a poor attempt at keeping himself together, at keeping the dam from cracking apart completely. Of course he'd be there for Wolfwood, always; there is no universe in which he couldn't be, wouldn't be, he thinks, as long as he could help it. Never again.

His head jerks upwards though, finally, from where his gaze had been locked in place ever since that heap of black and mangles limbs had taken up so much space, when more voices echo through the mist. It doesn't feel so oppressive now; less a yolk around his neck and shoulders and more wavering and twisting, like sheer layers of sheets in a breeze.

And oh, what could have been. It grips and squeezes at the poor organ beneath grate and scar and rib, and hot tears double and fall in earnest. He-- he should be happy. Is happy, somewhere, that there is a time and place somewhere out there in which this grief does not loo over the both of them like the specter that it is.

Right now, it only nails the grief to the wall in front of them, a twisted form of jealousy.

Off in the not-so-far distance, the mist swirls again; it takes that moment of fantasy along with it, the two of them fading peacefully instead of the shambling, ugly way in which Chapel had before them. If he'd looked harder, Vash might have caught a flash of confused blue-green glancing back at him-- but his own vision is too blurred as he feels Wolfwood's hand softly take his own to lead the way.

"Yeah," he croaks quietly. "Yeah, okay."

"Sorry?" Wolfwood echoes, because he can't even begin to guess what Vash would be sorry about here. They've been over this so many times: Wolfwood's end was not his fault, what Chapel did was not his fault. Even if everything led back to that one single moment in time where ships fell from the skies like stars, how would anyone ever know what it would lead to? "You got nothin' to be sorry for."

Vash had been there, had saved him. He's got mud caked onto his face and in his hair, he looks a damn mess and wants to find his way back home and clean the muck off, but Vash is shaking and there's tears rolling slowly down his cheeks — Wolfwood can see them even if Vash won't turn completely to look at him.

"Thank you," he says. "For savin' my skin there."

It'd been so quick. In a flash Vash had made himself a barrier between Wolfwood and the old man. He's… so strong, the strongest person Wolfwood's ever known. The bravest, too.

"We should g—" He's cut off by hazy movement in the mist. His head jerks in the direction of it, just a little ways in front of them both.

"Spikey," a voice, his voice calls, but it's not from his mouth. Two figures materialize in the mist, dirty and blood-stained but alive. The mist turns into colorful confetti, raining down on them like snow. "Spikey, you—"

He watches himself, clothes torn from bullet holes and collar stained red and shoes tracking blood, reach out to grab the phantom of Vash by the shoulders.

"You didn't haveta come all the way out here, idiot, yer brother's still out there, you—"

"And leave you to fight all on your own? Not a chance!"

They did it together.

They're going to make it.

No tragic end, no wailing of grief, no dirt under nails from digging a crude grave. No, it's a what if. What if Wolfwood hadn't run off alone, what if Vash had gotten there earlier. What if. What if.

"Vash," he says, voice quiet as their echoes bicker and then stumble into each other in a tight embrace, as the phantom Wolfwood (alive, heart still beating strong, not dying; in love, happy, warm) laughs, tears streaking down his cheeks. "Vash, let's get out of here."

[amoirsetpacis]

★ --;; The hand on Vash's shoulder can definitely feel how he's shaking all over as soon as it lands, adrenaline and horror that had already been rising as he'd stood there between master and pupil now crashing into him like a wall. The hand that had remained steady regardless now joins the rest of him with it's trembling, sights falling as it lowers and his finger pulling back off the trigger.

The sunglasses he's been wearing in replacement of his own, the ones Wolfwood had given him, don't serve to be as much of a shield as his old ones. When the mist clears, even just the bit, it's easy to see how wet they are Each word out of that corpse had been just as piercing as one of his own bullets, acid dripping through his ears and burning all the way through him.

And even though the body had been blown away, crumbled like the sand it had been left to rot upon, whatever had taken the place of its blood still remains there, an oozing, stark black mess on the concrete, an unignorable neon sign of what he'd done.

Staring down at it, the damn cracks, a spiderweb under the pressure of it all. A hiccup of a breath, a hard sniff, mouth in a crumpled line and the first stubborn tear rolling down his cheek, past the dark circles beneath his eyes.

"I'm sorry," he croaks, audibly trying to keep himself together through the wobble in his voice. He shouldn't cry. Shouldn't be crying. It's not his place to; that man hadn't hurt him like he'd hurt Wolfwood, his family. And Vash had failed him, too; had been too slow when he'd been needed most, when Wolfwood had gone on without him, all because of what Vash had done.

It had been what he wanted, hadn't it? For Wolfwood to understand that love. And then Vash had gone and been late. Had nearly been so here, too, hadn't he?

If he speaks any more, he'll break completely-- not able to even explain himself. All the anger has drained out of him entirely; he just feels string out, even if he can't be right now. Can't even get himself to turn.

It's not the first time he's had his face in the mud with a weapon pointed down at him. It's cold and wet and clings to him uncomfortably, weighing down his limbs as he tries to move in a way to get the old man off of him.

Gunshots. One after the other. He feels Chapel's body jerk above him on impact, something splattering over his back and staining his clothes. Vash is a red blur in the mist, moving so fast that Wolfwood can barely process what's happening until Chapel is suddenly off of him and Vash is right between them.

The old man is on the ground, coughing up some sort of substance black as tar. Wolfwood slowly pushes himself up, hazily locating where his gun was kicked aside through the mist. He looks up at Vash standing there, tall and unwavering, gun steady as it points directly towards Chapel's chest.

And Chapel barks out a laugh in response to Vash's words.

"Do you think it was all to make myself feel big? Ah, Master Knives was right about you after all..."

There is no elaboration on that. The old man's eyes shine dangerously.

"Your love could never save this hopeless boy. He's no more alive than I... you know that, don't you?"

Wolfwood is creeping slowly over to where his gun is, fingers closing around it. He switches the safety on. His hands are shaking, just a little bit. Scared, maybe. He doesn't want to listen to what the ghost of Chapel is saying.

"Your time together is finite. And when it is over, he will always,

always,

always,

be nothing more than a corpse in the sand."

Another rattling laugh, followed by wet hacking sounds as Chapel spits up sludge, and a wind passes through the mist, making it swirl, blocking Wolfwood's vision for a few moments.

When it clears enough to see, the old man is gone.

Wolfwood swallows. Slowly, he pushes himself up from the muck and reaches over to put his hand on Vash's shoulder.

[amoirsetpacis]

★ --;; The brief moment of disbelief is all that's needed for the old man to stitch himself back together, to have his tattered corpse upright even after being confined to that chair at the end of his true life. Vash spends just long enough frozen in place to see as Wolfwood is pinned to the ground, curses that moment of hesitation as that same white hot anger flares through his nerves. Even though it may not be entirely the same it's close enough, too similar to that day, and Wolfwood struggling and making eye contact is finally enough to break the spell.

Vash had already been too late for him once before. He refuses to ever be so again.

The Colt is in Vash's hand faster than could have been recognizable, eyes wide and bright and furious beneath furrowed brows. All he can think as the sound of another bullet rings clearly through the mist is 'Off'. It plants itself firmly into the man's shoulder; only the caliber of the bullet and the proximity are enough to cause the muscle to twitch on impact-- as sturdy as he is despite the appearance-- as Vash circles him, slow footsteps heavy. Speed isn't needed, not here. Off. Again. Off. Again.

Off. Off.

Each one is enough. They're not fatal, never are [liar], but each one is enough to lodge itself into what should still be a shambling corpse, into what should have stayed a putrid heap on the ground, unmoving. Enough to get him to look ( those red-rimmed eyes don't mean anything-- mourning something that never once was, never could be, that never once was truly there, only what they wanted to be ) enough to get the grip on Woflwood's arm to loosen just the bit as they tear into flesh still cold save for the heat of the unseen suns.

Off.

Instead of yet another bullet, this time Vash's knee rams itself into decrepit collarbone, feels what should have been a sickening crunch beneath the cover as the man is finally pushed back and up and off. A twist-- this time the back of the opposite heel, the sole of his boot making contact without restraint.

The rest of him is shaky, breath rattling too-loud in his lungs and shoulders heaving and heart beating too fast and the angry buzzing between his ears aa drowning sea; but his gun hand remains steady, pointed right in the center of the monster's chest as Vash looms. Wolfwood is behind him, now, Vash standing firmly between the two figures cloaked in black. Sludge paints the obscured pavement where blood should be, oozing out of wounds trying in vain to sew themselves back together. There's still one more bullet in the chamber.

"You think it's easy?" he asks, voice low and even. "Choosing the right thing, instead of mindless killing? Instead of hurting so many children?" His thumb cocks the hammer back. "Did it make you feel big?"

"Because it just shows how weak you are."

"Vash," Wolfwood cuts in, voice sharp, eyes hard and jaw tense. "Yer really gonna let a ghost tell ya it's yer fault? You didn't make me go n'do what I did."

The ghost of Chapel lets out another rattling cackle. He's moving again, and it's with surprising coordination for a dead man. Like he's not dead at all. Like he could just stand up right now.

"Stronger than me? He couldn't even land a killing blow on the phantom that killed his friends—tried to kill you."

And he is standing then, tears and lacerations sealing themselves, broken and shattered bones settling back into place, skin reforming. The blood remains, as does the smell. The smell of death always followed Chapel, anyway. He's an imposing, dark figure there, like Wolfwood always saw him in his memories. In his nightmares.

"He won't even pull the trigger now!"

The movement is fast, so fast that Wolfwood has no time to react. That black cloak whips around with it. The ghoul twists the gun out of his hand and kicks it out of arm's reach, yanks Wolfwood's arm behind his back and knocks him to his knees.

Wolfwood, winded, can only let out a breathless yelp as he goes down.

And it's like Chapel's forgotten that Vash is even there now. Wolfwood thrashes and it only makes Chapel drive into his back harder, effectively pinning him down on the ground. "You... worthless child! You failure! You took everything we gave you and spat on it! All I did for you, for nothing! All you ever did was embarrass me!"

Wolfwood's squirming, still. Cold mud ruins his clothes and sticks to one side of his face, cakes into his hair. He's not injured here, he should be able to get up, but something about this Mist...

Chapel, old as he is, is still a formidable opponent. He's his teacher. He survived death countless times, and now he's here as some sort of horrible phantom to mock Wolfwood one last time. Wolfwood can hazily see the form of Chapel's Punisher materializing in the mist, and he does not want that biting into him at all.

Wolfwood doesn't say anything, he just stares at Vash like he's saying, What are you waitin' for? He's distracted! Help me out here!

[amoirsetpacis]

★ -- ;; I didn't want to be worshiped, bites at the back of Vash's throat, sharp and harsh. Wouldn't even have deserved it. Neither of them had, false angels as they were, blips in time that Vash had so often believed had no place on that planet.

But the words cant find traction when the air gets squeezed from his lungs, when claws dig themselves so deeply into a wound poorly patched over, like so many before it. He may have claimed as much, all those months ago, that there had bee no change; that Nicholas D. Wolfwood had always been full of love, no matter how hard this man had tried to bury it.

The truth is, though, really, that it had been his fault all the way down, hadn't it? For so long, the thought has plagued the back of his mind, a familiar friend at the bottom of a bottle or hovering over his head on sleepless nights. That maybe if he hadn't dug tup that heart, then maybe he wouldn't have had to dig up a grave. And even further than that, that maybe if he hadn't been born in the first place, then the Eye never would have existed. Maybe some day in the distant future, Wolfwood could have had anormal life, like so many others that had been affected by Vash and Knives' existence.

Even as the mangled mass of bone and muscle jerks and shifts, Vash stays in place, doesn't reach for his Colt or move from where he's found himself rooted in place. What could he do? Any strength, any of what was barely holding this corpse together at the seams, could only have been a fraction of what Chapel had had in life, even confined as he had been, crippled by his own pupil. And even if he could, Vash would have taken it unflinchingly, willingly.

As much as Vash had blamed himself for the end, though, it doesn't replace the hurt that had been etched there before him, beaten into a boy far too young to have seen the horrors he had. It hadn't so much been taught to him as engraved in his skin, chisel and all. That hate for himself might run deeper, but anger burns brighter, and there's still plenty of it left over to cauterize the punctures this old man clearly wanted to put into him so badly.

Even when they don't get caught in Vash's chest, the words don't have time to take shape, Wolfwood's frame looming out of the swirling mist with all the rigidity and swiftness that such fury carries. By the time the muzzle of the gun is jammed against Chapel's skull, Vash still hasn't moved an inch.

Bright blue meets clouded brown, and the hard line of Vash's shoulders droops.

"You're right," he says, far more quietly than before. The same stiffness has sagged away from his tone as well; any of that cold evenness from before now simply sounds almost-- almost tired. "I've known that for a long time."

As he speaks, Vash's eyes steadily slide back down. Despite the exhaustion, his gaze is firm. "But being soft doesn't make you weak. He's stronger than you ever would have been."

The old man in the chair laughs and it sounds like a death rattle. He sits there, pale and bloody and rotting, a cruel reminder to Vash just what he did. Heat is cruel to a dead body. Without a grave he had been left to the elements, to the mercy of the twin suns and the sand and the worms and the carrion birds.

"You left me to rot," Chapel rasps. "What a cruel angel. We would have worshiped you."

One mangled hand lifts, pointing a weathered finger Vash's way. Those dead eyes still have some emotion in them. Despair, perhaps. Betrayal. Grief.

"I could never forgive my student," he laments. "Despite everything I did for him, he still put me here. And then you... what did you do to him?"

He sounds despairing, agonized. Those dead eyes now look wet and red-rimmed, like he's on the verge of tears. A purple tongue swipes over cracked lips.

"Perhaps... were it not for your meddling... undoing all that he was taught... he would have survived. Isn't that a sad thought? You made him soft and he died for it."

The ghoul gives a rattling laugh again. And he moves, jerky and unnatural, limbs torn and bones splintered from bullets. He looks like he's about to get up from the wheelchair, and—

Someone breaks through the mist, coming up right behind the undead in long, fluid strides.

The man in black is no phantom. He's not the small, shaking, terrified child Vash had just seen. He's tall, strong, stone-faced, a dark shadow in the mist, and he's nuzzling his gun right into Chapel's filthy hair. It stops the old man's movements entirely.

He doesn't pull the trigger. His eyes flit up to Vash and his lips pull into a frown.

[railheist]

The crimson eclipse shines through the mist. Maria walks up to Yumine's side. A fully grown Mister Blue trots along with her, and Maria adjusts the rifle on her back.

"Well, Yumine, looks like the fog rolled in. I'm surprised we're still here. Must be some sorta sign..."

"Hey. Who is that?"

She squints at the figure. Who is he, and more importantly, what does he want with Yumine?

MISTIFIED

"What...is this place?" And why was he here?

[amoirsetpacis]

★ --;; Like a horrible marionette, limbs and joins are yanked and pulled where Vash does not want them. His whole arm shakes, trembling almost violently down at his side against each thread digging into his fingers, into the fine spaces between bone in each knuckle, beneath the quivering muscle of his forearm. Each declaration, from either side, sounds like it's reverberating between his ears, behind his eyes. Too-loud, even more of a cacophony wrapping itself around his already racing thoughts. They drown out his voice, trap it in the back of his throat, caught between the weight of it all and the bubbling heat of anger, of fear, of every horrid thought that had spent so many years festering inside of him.

His voice wins, eventually; thin, forced, uneven, but by sheer determination and the boiler-plate pressure alone building impossibly up and up inside of him. His hand stays stubbornly, desperately, in place.

"Killing you wouldn't be a mercy!" he gasps. "It wasn't hen, and it wouldn't be now!"

The guilt, the knowledge of what he'd done; it's haunted his shadow for years, nightmares both when awake and asleep. The fear that had let it all happen, an impossible choice. There's no way to tell the young undertaker; that even if he could physically move, there wouldn't ever truly be any escape. Not from this man, nor his presence, nor what Vash had done. The cracks in him had been deepened years ago, shoddily taped together instead of ever truly making an attempt at mending them. There had never been a way to. Letting Bluesummers kill him here, take his vengeance out on yet another instead of Vash directly-- it would only deepen them further. It didn't matter if he wasn't him or not. It wouldn't, either, not when he'd already failed his counterpart so much, not when this Wolfwood had not had a single part to play in what had brough the lot of them here, to this moment.

There's got to be something. Anything. Without a clue of whether or not his words would mean anything or if they would only be good for stalling, he says; "You want to die again so badly-- but no matter what you do, you'll still see another sunrise here. They don't care if you're alive or dead." So many here are proof of that-- he's proof of that, smeared across the pavement, a battery run dry over and over again.

"And even if you didn't, killing you still wouldn't be a mercy." Mercy had been forgiveness, no matter who it was or who may have thought it hadn't been deserved, over and over and over again until it was seemingly only Vash who could reach for that forgiveness. Mercy had been flying away together.

He had never forgiven Legato Bluesummers. Had tried, desperately, to extend mercy-- until that, too, had proved futile. Had proved itself to be yet another insult in the face of the man holding them both hostage in their own bodies.

He should have. He should have. He doesn't know if he can. If the words would even mean anything-- or if they'd be empty noise to the both of them, now. He doesn't know.

His muscles are failing under the strain; pain shoots through his arm as sinew is forced against his want, strength not what it once was. Blood oozes from infinitesimal incisions; a fat drop rolls down the long line of a finer before finally falling to the concrete below, hidden beneath a layer of mist.

"Mercy would have been learning how to live. "

@cerebralbleu > @punishercross

Rhyme and reason for the forsaken acolyte had never come from a sensible place. Sound resolution requires a bedrock foundation for it to develop on, a platform for truth, ideals and beliefs to grow, change and adapt to life experiences. The mad man standing before them was not of sound mind, nor was he certain what it may feel like to experience mental stability.

Legato Bluesummers was not an independent person. He had no personality, nor identity. He was a concept, made up of selective conditioning, and cruel propaganda. To understand why he so desperately wanted to die, would require understanding who had planted that seed deep into his subconscious.

" Why should I have to justify my wants? " Resentment echoes in his words. Legato looms over Vash with the weight of a roof that was soaked and rotting, consumed from the inside out by hungry, greedy termites.

For every moment where Legato found himself wanting, he experience equal amounts of self-loathing. To want was to be selfish, to be selfish was so disgustingly human, and the entire basis for the disciple's existence was to abhorrence for mankind. Abhorrence for himself that festered until the miniscule self-worth had eroded away, taking away survival instinct with the waves.

How else could he best serve his master?

He tore himself apart each and every day so that God need not waste his energy on such a lowly creature when the day of culling finally came.

" Not everything I desire comes from him. "

Admitting that part out loud made his throat burn with bile, because when stripped of his very being on that final day when he and Vash the Stampede had drawn their weapons upon each other, Legato discovered how pointless his entire existence had been.

" I though you of all people would understand mercy. "

His voice cracks with emotion, manic tears welling in bloodshot eyes.

How horrible it is to know that the disciple had walked towards his own death with the intention of dedicating it to Knives' and the torture of his brother,

only to openly yearn for salvation from the barrel of a gun.

Oh, he remembers how tired his battered, broken body had been in his final moments.

That was a selfish death. That was a self-serving suicide. It was the first time that Legato had ever wished anything for himself. How morbid and corrupt it had been.

Invasive threads tangle around the vital regions of Nicholas D. Wolfwood, latching onto muscle and sinew nearest the nerves and arteries. It would be so simple to cease his heart beat, or he could delight in tear him limb from limb as he descends further into insanity. Legato is laughing, he is laughing as the tears begin to leave long streaks down his face.

" Are you so cruel that you won't give me even THAT? You and your brother aren't so different after all, are you? "

Just as he had driven this man to the breaking point the first time this horrible memory played out, Legato pushes more and more, holding one life hostage while forcing Vash's hand.

" You know how this ends already, " Legato's voice rasps, now entangling Vash's arm with wires, yanking it until the hand hovers over where the colt should be concealed. " But I won't just stop with him this time. "

@punishercross -> @amoirsetpacis

[amoirsetpacis]

★ --;; The heart still in his throat gets constricted there as it tightens, eyes wide and every cell of him on high alert, finally finding a focal point. The breath he takes rattles with an unease reserved for this man only, his own proclaimed hunting mark. A parallel has yet to exist- which his probably what he had wanted, anyway.

Brandishing a gun at him-- that was something Vash was used to; but holding the presence Bluesummers did, knowing exactly what was hidden away from his own eyes, what was possible-- all of those puzzle pieces leave Vash coiled tight like a spring locked in place. The knowledge of what he'd done, forever imprinted in the back of his eyelids.

The real question, though, the one electric in the back of Vash's mind-- was this him? Or was this another horrible spectre conjured by the mist still swirling angrily around the both of them, thrown about wildly by the self-made destruction of its own creations, just as that amalgamation of his brother had been?

Any comfort that could have been found in the fact that they-- whether this Legato was real or not-- were alone, any opening for Vash to have reached for the person who had walked headlong into that fight, is swiftly quashed by the sight in his own periphery.

Because if they had at least been alone, no one else to reach for, then maybe that single horrific memory wouldn't have to be given form, at least not in its entirety. But luck has never once graced Vash the Stampede when it came to this man, and his only saving grace is that the younger Wolfwood wasn't clearly in the other's line of sight-- regardless of whether or not that would even matter, in the end. That the screams of failing engines might have managed to cover the sound only honed ears like their own might have caught.

Vash keeps his eyes fixed ahead of him, locked solely onto Bluesummers, in the hope that it would be enough, for now. Go bubbles up hot in his throat, panic fueled, desperation, as nerve endings and muscle memory already relive that moment, those seconds. Get away from here, he wishes he could scream.

But instead he starts stalling. Hopes, somehow, that it will be enough to get the young undertaker to leave. Doubts it will be.

"Did you speak with him?" Vash asks instead of making the first move, voice as steady as he can make it. "My brother?"

@cerebralbleu > @punishercross

Gunfire punctuates deranged thoughts, a manifesto of one-sided devotion that would fall on nobody's ears. A corpse of a man shambles through the mist, pupils like pinpricks, like distant stars, blazing like the calamity overhead. He wields the gun, shooting wildly, achieving precision that could only be credited to his manic state.

All of this is so familiar to him, like he is possessing his own body and operating on autopilot.

Like he has been here before, hunting for his man, knowing that he was walking himself towards a burial ground that had yet to be dug.

The cacophony rattling in his ears demands that he prove himself. Prove his worthiness. Prove his efficiency. Prove the fact that he could kill him. He could bring him to his knees, and if not, he would fulfill the rotten promise that he gave to his master: your brother will suffer at the hands of humans.

Regrettably so, Legato Bluesummers was mortal, despite his demonic will.

Regardless of what happens, today, an angel learns how it feels to to be human, by committing a mortal sin.

Legato brandishes his weapon as he moves through the dense mist, looming, that stoic smile twisting into an awful grin when finally, finally, he locks eyes with the subject of his deep seeded ire. (Perhaps it is fortunate that his shot missed; he wants Vash to look at him. He wants to see his exquisite misery.)

Faux joy vanishes, replaced with his stoic gaze, the webbing of his threads already laid over the landscape, waiting.

" It's over. It was over the moment I arrived,

Vash the Stampede. "