Lucilfer (ChrolloxReader)

Epilogue

"You are my sunshine,
My only sunshine.
You make me happy
When skies are gray.
You'll never know, dear,
How much I love you.
Please, don't take my sunshine away."

*Kurapika's POV*

There was a warm breeze scathing the deserted valley before my eyes, gently ruffling the shaggy, overgrown grass and bringing life to the violets and dandelions which had sprung up wildly after years of vacancy. Trees in the distance rustled to its sway, performing a dance of midsummer and beating sunshine, but only deceivingly. Life didn't inhabit this place, and neither did the happiness so falsely preached by the bright colors which only showed themselves to the naked gaze—to me, the rolling green was drab, and void, and any spots of purple or yellow were vague, dull. I hated this place, and yet it held such a painful tenderness in my heart.

I'd almost forgotten what day it was upon arriving—everything had blurred together after I'd spent the night in that concrete prison, shedding relentless tears until my throat was marred beyond the ability to speak, and the minor wound on my cheek was reopened, irritated by the salty liquid. It hadn't been my intention to stay in that wretched abandoned building, the place where thieves and murderers congregate in the hopes of being the first one to earn a mocking laugh at whoever would be the next life they gleefully demolished. But such was far past my own help—it had been as if I couldn't move, nor could I think, neither could I decide a plan of action, because there was nothing else left for me at all, not even the fleeting expectation of crawling back in shackles to my slave warden, my own rage.

"Who are you really exacting vengeance upon, Kurapika?"

Forty-eight hours ago, I might've flinched at the sound of her voice, so distraught with emptiness, my emptiness that I had forced her to feel, so selfishly. But I couldn't bother with wincing away from the past anymore; I'd been stripped of emotion. It felt that way, at least. I felt that way, as if I had been a train set on a wayward pair of tracks, moving on into my own destruction, before fate had plucked me away, fashioned me into something made of glimmering plastic so that it look enough of metal, and set me back on a straight line. I couldn't derail from it; I would never be free from it. I became stagnant.

I don't know who I am anymore.

But it was what I'd expected, was it not? I'd been giving away pieces of myself as sacrifices to ease the lash of rage for so long, but I'd been doing so willingly. I had wanted it to consume me, to give me nothing but its unfulfilling promise of revenge, and yet it had deceived me once again. I was not allowed my vengeance, not when it had brought me to the same level as the murderer who'd sparked my rage to begin with—I'd become apathetic, uncaring, calloused, and all of it had been directed towards the only one I'd ever loved, the only one I continued to love.

Perhaps I had hoped to punish her for the way she betrayed me, the way she'd sold her soul to Lucifer, himself. I hadn't even allowed myself to care when I'd found her weeping so bitterly over his chained body. Although I am loathe to admit this now, I had reveled in her pain. I'd enjoyed inflicting such emotional pain on her mind because I'd felt that it was justice. To begin with, at least—there was a moment when I'd tried to come to my senses, when I'd practically begged her to love me. But I was a fool for ever thinking she would turn from a seduction so dark.

I'd spent so long thinking that it was my place to be the savior—to save the memories of my clan, my family and friends, to save the lives of my friends, to save (Y/n)'s soul. But as I came to conclusions on that bloody, broken platform within the base of the Spiders, as hours upon hours flew by and left me drained, pulled of any life or vitality, sucked dry of even rage, I was gifted, or perhaps cursed, with the epiphany that every single one of my efforts to be the savior had utterly obliterated the end goal.