𝐍𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐱𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬 - Wriothesley x Neuvillette

Utter despair (Chapter 18)

Thank you all for 10k reads.

I'd like to apologize in advance for this chapter.

I'm sorry, here we go.

He walked into Palais Memoria. His heart was pounding, and he felt like his legs would give in under him. He knocked on Neuvillette's door but received no answer. He was just about to leave when the door opened, and he was dragged inside.To be perfectly honest, Neuvillette looked like he hadn't slept in 2 weeks. He was still beautiful, of course. Wriothesley could never think he was anything less than perfection.

"What do you want, your grace?" 

Neuvillette's voice was piercing. He sounded colder than when he spoke to criminals in court, colder than when he had spoken to him in court. 

"I'm here to uh apologize," Wriothesley mumbled. He knew what he had to do, but it felt awful to even think about it.

"Is that so?" It didn't seem as though the Iudex cared in the slightest. They both knew it was too late. An apology 3 weeks later? No.

"Yes, Monsieur, I'm truly sorry-" He hesitated, and Neuvillette noticed it.

"It doesn't seem like it, or perhaps you forgot what you wanted to say?"

"Yes, I'm sorry. Neuvillette, I am truly sorry for what I wrote in those notes. I'm truly sorry for upsetting you." 

He kept eye contact as he slowly stepped closer. At first, Neuvillette backed away but eventually stopped and let Wriothesley get close to him. The second he was close enough Wriothesley grabbed Neuvillette and pinned him down on his desk.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled before covering the other man's eyes and forcing him to drink the liquid from the small bottle he had hidden behind his back the entire time. He thought Neuvillette would have noticed the liquid the second he stepped into the room and that even if he managed to get him to drink it, it would have no effect on him. Neuvillette was the hydro dragon after all. 

He had hoped Neuvillette would have figured it all out, but the Chief Justice collapsed and fell limp in his eyes. He felt panic rise through him as Neuvillette became unconscious, just like it was planned. He had never hated that a plan worked, but in this moment he truly despised the genius behind this. 

Just a few hours earlier, the masked jerk, who still refused to take their mask off or take their stupid hood off, had explained to Wriothesley that they had created this 'miracle' that should be able to knock out anything. He should have known that 'anything' includes dragons.

He carefully scooped Neuvillette up into his arms. A portal appeared before him, just as planned. He hesitated, was he gonna do this? But then he stepped through the portal, with the sleeping dragon in his arms. For Meropide, he thought, as he stepped through the portal, and looked at Matheo, who was smiling at him. Not in a friendly way, but more in a way that made him look very punchable. 

He handed Neuvillette over to them, his heart aching for him, knowing what was about to happen and that he could do nothing to stop it. 

He looked at the bubble in front of him. It looked harmless. Floating there in the middle of an endless sea. Everything was dark around him, and he feared if he took another step, he would fall through whatever he was standing on and into the emptiness. And there, in the middle, one lonely bubble floating in the nothingness. 

A bubble that would ruin everything, a bubble that would contain the hydro dragon, a bubble that would make the person stuck inside it suffer. That's what they told him. And considering how they had been right about that weird liquid, it wouldn't surprise him if this was also true. 

He watched as they locked Neuvillette inside the bubble. Everything around him felt suffocating and unreal as he watched the Iudex wake up and scream in pain. He was suffering, and it was Wriothesley's fault. He watched as he screamed in agony. He wanted to get out of there. He couldn't stand watching this anymore. He couldn't stand the thought of Neuvillette seeing him, knowing he did this to him. 

But at that moment, their eyes locked, and Neuvillette's already wide eyes widened further as he realized who was in the audience.

Neuvillette's POV 

I was numb for a while. Everything had disappeared right in front of me. But then I felt an excruciating pain. It first started in my chest, in my heart. It felt as though I had been stabbed in the heart, and it was bleeding out all over me. 

That's when I woke up and looked around. It was all empty, nothingness all around me. I could sense there were other people present, but the agony kept me from being able to focus on them. It hurt so much. I felt the stabbing pain begin to burn as it made its way through my bones and veins, burning my sanity away. I couldn't believe the situation I was in. Nothing had ever been able to harm me in the slightest before. But this pain, this fire, it was eating me up, and I was stuck, unable to do anything but endure. 

Then I saw him. It had been hard to breathe before, but now I was drowning, suffocating in pure despair. How could he? Wriothesley was looking at me. He was behind this, wasn't he? The pain intensified. It was unbearable, but no matter how hard I tried, there was nothing I could do. I couldn't move a muscle, I couldn't teleport away, I couldn't use my elemental energy, I couldn't even blink. It was all too much.

And he just stood there, unmoving, looking at me as if my suffering was on display for him to watch as entertainment. Did he truly hate me so much that he would do this to me? I wanted to speak. I wanted to ask him. I tried, but no sound came out of my mouth. My lips didn't even move. All I could do was look around at my empty surroundings, trying to find someone who would save me from this fate, but all I saw was emptiness.