The Art of Forgiveness

Chapter 5

Luigi coming into the picture wasn't as horrible as Blumiere initially thought it would be.

Make no mistake, it wasn't ideal and things were clearly awkward, but it wasn't horrible.

Luigi surprisingly didn't seem mad at Blumiere at all, actually. He approached the former count with a sense of understanding and made it clear that the past didn't matter, so long as he was trying to change for the better. His kindness and understanding towards the count were something that the count did not expect.

Dimentio on the other hand?

Luigi couldn't bring himself to even look at Dimentio at first. He refused to speak to or even acknowledge the jester, which was nothing short of annoying to Dimentio. He could understand the man in green being upset with him, but he wasn't a fan of being ignored.

From that point in time, Dimentio essentially made it his mission to annoy and tick off Luigi until the man in green would give in and finally acknowledge his existence. 

There were a few obstacles in the way of him properly annoying Luigi. The first one was Blumiere, who was practically obsessed with the idea of being a respectful guest. Whenever Dimentio would even try to approach Luigi while Blumiere was in the same room, the former count would practically hold him back, begging him to leave the poor man in green alone.

Funny, Dimentio thought to himself. You didn't have the same attitude when you and Nastasia were literally brainwashing the 'poor man in green,' and forcing him to fight against his friends and family, count.

The second obstacle was Mario, who seemed to have made it his mission to keep Dimentio away from Luigi at all costs. Not that Mario was all too intimidating, but he was a legendary hero who was partially responsible for Dimentio's demise after the whole Chaos Heart/Super Dimentio catastrophe, and he did have a killer glare, which he gave Dimentio every time he simply breathed near Luigi. In some ways, that glare reminded Dimentio of the glare a mother would give her child when scolding them.

Dimentio couldn't help but feel like he was in some sort of prison with Blumiere and Mario acting as his guards, even though Blumiere was TECHNICALLY supposed to be a prisoner as well. Honestly, he was glad that the count had trailed off from his life of lies and betrayal, but this was just flat-out irritating. 

Irritating, and clearly a desperate act. No one like that could actually change for the better permanently. At the end of the day, bad people would always be bad people. At the end of the day, Blumiere could never take back what he had done and Dimentio could never forgive him for lying and deceiving all the people who sacrificed so much to help him. Even if Blumiere was playing the good guy card now, he was still a villain, born of darkness.

Even if Dimentio and Blumiere somehow managed to get to the Overthere, they surely wouldn't deserve it. Dimentio knew that for a fact and was fine with being remembered as a villain. There was no point in fighting who he was. The fact that they were using this stupid book to get to the Overthere was practically cheating in its own way. It didn't even matter if they were good people or not, so he would appreciate it if Blumiere could just stop trying so hard. He was just wasting his time and energy.

"Hey, L," Dimentio teased, popping up behind Luigi while the man in green silently read a small book in the living room. Blumiere and Mario were talking about some boring, useless topic in the kitchen, so he thought that now would be the perfect time to push Luigi over the edge and get him to finally acknowledge his existence. He knew the perfect way to do so would be to refer to him as Mr. L, which was Luigi's name while he was being brainwashed into becoming one of Bleck's loyal minions back at Castle Bleck. 

He was certain that just hearing the name would surely bring back some unhappy memories, if Luigi even did remember his time there. Honestly, Dimentio wasn't too sure how Nastasia's brainwashing worked. He knew more about the floral sprouts, which would dig into a person's skull and essentially make them subject to the control of the one who planted the seed in their mind. Nastasia's brainwashing was a form of hypnosis, however, which the jester wasn't nearly as familiar with.