Chapter Text
The stench of the Qliphoth was one of the few things that Nero could clearly remember from that day in June. When he had hacked his way inside of the infernal tree for the first time, the sharp hit of rotting flesh to his throat had shocked him a little. Though, it wasn’t anything he hadn’t experienced before. Being a devil hunter was a guarantee for your fair share of guts and gore every mission. Nero had CERTAINLY had his share, so he was used to the kind of smell that didn’t fade from his clothes until a few days later.
The second time was what had shocked him. The rotting flesh still lingered, but a much more foul smell had now joined it. Human blood. He knew that scent well. It was the same scent that had followed him through his childhood, through the petty fights at the orphanage, his first missions in the order, within the burning wreck of his adoptive parent’s house. He was never quite dull to it, despite how often it had made its way into his life.
The metallic musk of the stuff was overwhelming, and being drenched in it whilst making his way through the internals of the tree was almost unbearable. The thought of those flaky husks scattered throughout the city lingered in his mind as he sliced his way through the enormous blood vessels that weaved through the Qliphoth, all leading to its putrid beating heart. The scent of that blood clung to him for months after the tree was felled.
Sometimes he thought he could still smell it clinging to his blade. He cleaned it more often after that day.
So, when Nero took in a breath now, he could immediately take a decent guess at his surroundings before he opened his eyes. That same harsh punch of decay in his nostrils was familiar, but indescribably more intense than he was used to. If you could call the Qliphoth bearable, you would need a whole new level of endurance to withstand whatever the hell this was.
There was a noticeable lack of human-blood-smell here unlike the Qliphoth, which calmed his nerves somewhat.
That still didn’t help the fact that breathing was now a conscious task due to the smell.
He was lying down on his back on some kind of fleshy surface that almost felt alive under his weight. Gross.
Opening his eyes, he found it hard to see anything at all. There was no sunlight here, wherever here was, though somehow the place seemed to be lit with a faint red glow.
Sitting up slowly, he noted the absence of Blue rose from its usual holster and Red Queen was nowhere to be found. Great, dropped into the middle of a demonic flesh pit with nothing to defend himself. Just how he wanted to start his day, or night, or whatever time of day it was. Again, the lack of a sun made it hard to tell.
As he rose to his feet, the flesh-ground squelching unpleasantly beneath his boots, he decided to get a good look at his surroundings.
The organic plain stretched out to the horizon, seemingly never ending. The only thing of note that he could make out during his short scour of the area was what looked like a small lake. He couldn’t quite make out what it contained, but he had the feeling that it wasn’t water.
He cautiously made his way to the shore, occasionally glancing over his shoulder as he walked. Something felt so off about this place, besides the fact that the ground now felt like it was pulsating underfoot (Had it always been doing that?) and the lake full of mystery liquid. Pressing onward was all he could do for now.
Coming to the shore of the lake it became obvious what the mystery liquid was. Not quite as metallic as human blood but just as red, he recognised the stuff instantly. Demonic blood. A slightly more welcome sight than human blood, that was for sure.
The crimson surface gently rippled into several small whirlpools, despite the stagnant air and lack of wind to move the liquid.
Peering into the surface of the lake, Nero caught a glimpse of his reflection. He was wearing his usual blue coat and tattered sweatshirt, his winged pendant hanging on top of it close to his collar bone. The eyes that stared back at him in his reflection were subtly tinted a shade of ochre, a shade similar to the eyes of his devil trigger. To help with his vision in the darkness he assumed.
Man, he still wasn’t used to all of this demonic shit. He had just gotten used to the sight of his devil bringer at his side before it was ripped from him, and now he was just about adjusting to his newly awakened abilities. They seemed to be causing more harm than good back at home, but he didn’t want to think about that situation right now. Here it seemed like they would come in handy.
Suddenly, a familiar sensation in his right arm pulled his attention from his reflection. He whipped his head immediately to the horizon away from the lake, scanning back and forth along it, frantically searching for any change or form of movement. This was something familiar at least, and it had never failed him before. He had felt it many times before in his devil bringer. That tingle sensed danger. Demons.
Eyes still on the horizon he took up a defensive stance and waited for what he assumed was an imminent ambush. Those bastards would have to try a little harder than that to catch him off guard.
10 seconds passed. Then 20. Where were they? He was sure he had sensed something, a demonic presence that large had to be a group of lesser demons or one huge one, and he doubted anything that big would be able to hide in this expanse. Had they turned tail already? Surely not.
30 seconds. 40. Alright, now he was pissed. These things would have to come to him or he’d have to find them, and he wasn’t keen on being baited into any kind of trap.
“Come on, don’t back out now.” His taunting echoed loudly across the terrain. “Scared to come out and play? You’d better show up soon, cause I don’t plan to-“
His voice cut suddenly as he felt a heavy punch to the nape of his neck. The sharp pressure on the back of his throat forced a gruesome choke, along with a strange gurgling noise. He tried to cough, but no air would enter his lungs. Something had begun to slip from inside of his mouth, dripping to the ground. Was that… blood?What kind of punch was that? His hands instinctively shot to his neck to grasp at whatever was causing him to choke, only to find a crimson blade protruding from his neck.
Ah. Great.
With one clean motion, the blade sliced its way downward. His rib cage was shattered easily with a grisly crunch as the cut was finished and the blade was drawn backwards through his lower abdomen, spilling pools of his blood to the floor.
Nero was no stranger to being stabbed. He’d been impaled by what he knew was the sharpest blade in existence and shook it off without so much as a thought. But this was different kind of pain than anything he’d ever felt when on the receiving end of the Yamato.
The searing pain coursed immediately through his body. It felt as if his insides were being burned up all at once, despite the narrow nature of the cut. He fell to his knees, gasping for air that he knew he would not be able to swallow.
He wanted to scream. He wanted to move, to defend himself, to do something, to do ANYTHING, and yet he felt as if he was a passenger in his own body as he collapsed to the ground.
He was powerless, useless against whatever this was. All he could manage was to keep his eyes open, fighting against the comfort that slipping into unconsciousness would surely grant him.
His vision began to falter. Something had grasped his wrist. He was being dragged backward.
Come on. Focus. Heal. Breathe.
Among other things he had found himself being able to do after the fall of the Qliphoth, freakishly fast healing had been the most useful. Being sliced to ribbons was no threat now, as all of his cuts would almost instantly seal themselves. Now, however, he couldn’t feel his wound stitching itself back together with its usual unnatural speed.
He began to feel the warm blood of the lake surrounding him. It lapped at the sides of his face, the viscous ooze spilling in to his ears, his mouth, now his nostrils. He was being submerged, dragged downward into the depths.
Focus. Move. Move!
He could make out small pockets of oxygen floating from his lips, what little breath he had left was now slipping away from him. If he didn’t move now, he was going to die.
He clung desperately to consciousness as the pressure in his ears rose. The only thing he could do now was fight to keep his eyes open, slowly watching himself fall further into the abyss.
Something appeared at the edge of the lake. Or someone? It looked like a silhouette distorted by the blood in his vision. Its face wasn’t visible in the shifting ooze, but three bright red eyes burned through the darkness.
“Nero.” It called to him. The voice was distorted and sharp and yet so clear to him, despite being so far from the surface now.
“Nero.” Was it just going to stand there? Any call for help now would be useless, muffled by the sheer amount of blood he was now beneath.
“Nero!” He was going to die. It was going to watch him die. Maybe that’s what it wanted, just to watch.
“NERO!”
Hands were firmly grasped on his shoulders shaking him awake frantically.
He snapped upwards with a force that flung the hands off of him, desperately gasping for air. Eyes flicking open, he frantically searched his surroundings.
He was in his bed, at home in Fortuna, covers thrown to the floor in what he could only assume was a panic. A small slice of moonlight spilled through a gap in the curtains across the room and onto the bed, revealing the tear stained face of his girlfriend kneeling at his side.
Kyrie was ghostly pale, the only colour present on her face being strays of Auburn hair messily scraped behind her ears. She was holding her head in her shaking hands, eyes occasionally flicking back to Nero, as if me might drop dead at any moment.
“You were gasping in your sleep… and I-I didn’t know what t-t-to do…. then you stopped breathing altogether and…and…”
She began to break into sobs again.
Nero leaned forward and pulled her into a tight embrace, placing one hand behind her head to stroke her hair. He’d do this when they were kids, when Kyrie would come into his room after waking up from a nightmare, shaking like a leaf as she was now.
And yet he was still comforting her, even after his nightmare. Some things never changed.
Warm tears began to run down his back as her sobbing continued. He leaned his head against hers and listend to her rattling breath as it slowly calmed itself back into a regular pattern.
He had no idea how long they sat like that before he realised that Kyrie had dozed off in his arms.
As he released her she jolted awake, digging her nails into his shoulders. Nero winced slightly as she pulled away, meeting his gaze with her own.
“I’m sorry I… I’m still slightly on edge I suppose.”
He brushed her cheek with the back of his palm, wiping away the damp tear streaks that ran down her face toward her lips.
“It’s ok. I’m ok, I promise.”
He pressed a gentle kiss to her lips, pulling back to see a slight smile reappearing on her face.
It didn’t last long however, concern returning to her features almost immediately.
“You need to tell me what it was this time. The whole truth.”
Crap. He’d always tried spared the details of his nightmares to Kyrie, especially the reoccurring ones that had started after the Qliphoth that now haunted his sleep almost every night. Emphasis on tried. His girlfriend had always found ways to worm as much truth out of him as she could. She knew he could never fully lie to her, and being as intelligent as she was, she’d always taken advantage of that. She was way too smart. He’d always loved that.
Now it was coming to bite him in the ass.
“In the morning. I promise.”
Kyrie gave him the look. The one that always made him crack. It was a mix of a condescending glare and slight reassuring smile. She really knew how to get under his skin in the best ways.
“What?! I mean it. I’m just tired right now.”
He wrapped his hands around her own, holding them together.
“I’ll tell you in the morning. Every little detail. I swear.”
She sighed and slipped her hands out of his, getting up from the bed and tying her nightgown as she continued to speak.
“I’m going to make you a herbal tea. Then, in the morning, I’m going to the library. It could be some form of poltergeist, I’m sure I saw an old tomb that contained some methods on dealing with those somewhere.”
“I told you it’s fine, you don’t need to-“
She pressed a finger to his lips, silencing any excuse that she knew he would attempt to give.
“Rest. I’ll be back.”
She tilted his head toward her, planting a kiss on his head.
He could feel his face burning in the dark as she quietly slipped into the corridor, closing the bedroom door carefully behind her.
Now on his own, Nero allowed himself to slump against the headboard, running a hand through his hair absentmindedly. That had been the third time in a row that the dream had been waiting for him. It always ended the same way, with him being pulled into the depths of that lake. But that figure…that was new.
He hadn’t managed to get a good look at any feature of it other than those eyes. Whatever it was, it certainly wasn’t human. The three eyes gave that away.
But what he sensed in his arm wasn’t the figure, It was whatever had dragged him into the lake, he was sure of that. So was it really a demon? If it was, why hadn’t he sensed it sooner? Just what the hell had managed to stab him?
Too many fucking questions.
He looked downward toward his chest at where the wound that had left him immobile was sliced. He ran his forefinger from the base of his neck to just above his naval, tracing the cut. Focusing just hard enough, he could picture it there. Focusing harder, it was as if he could still feel it.