𝘨𝘢𝘮𝘣𝘭𝘦𝘳

Chapter 32. Survival Becomes War

[Gambler]

There was a moment when I hated myself, that I wanted to tear myself out from the inside. Then it built. First, when I'd flinched before freezing at his pulse stopped against my shoulder. Then everything before. I didn't stop him. I watched it happen, I let it happen. There something, I could have just done anything to fix it.

Everything was wrong.

Here, beside me was a dead man. A good one, a priest who sacrificed his life over children. His family. Vash, myself. He pushed the limits, and it cost his life. Lifeless he is on my lap.

There's lightning. There's feathers sprouting, and I don't care who's they are. I'm sure im wailing, weeping, screaming, but I can't hear any of it. There's just the steady flow of tears and the stroke of his hair.

"Hey, Hey!" I cry out, holding Nicholas D. Wolfwood's lifeless body. "Don't take my little brother!! Don't take him from me! I love him, please stop taking everyone I love!! Hey! God!! Listen to me, this is your priest man! Bring him back! Give him back!"

It must be Vash who's causing chaos. The lightning, the static atmosphere. His hairline turning jet black. His power, making a threat to Knives. Who drove his gung-ho to this battle and killed our best friend.

I sob, cry, and scream while cradling his body, rocking back and forth. This impending thought that I brough him into this dog-eat-dog world, I stuck him in this orphanage and he got taken advantage of. I should have done better to take care of him, to provide so he wouldn't have had to live this life. My little brother, I've failed you again!

This is a war now. Knives wouldn't want to make a joke of it.

"Revy," Vash's coarse voice brings me to my senses. "Let's give him a proper burial."

I wipe viciously at my tears, hiccuping a few times until I can muster a coarse, "... Yeah."

We find a morgue, mostly destroyed, and take a coffin with a cross. We tidy up Wolfwood to the best of our ability before laying him to rest, without a word. We leave his coffin in the now empty orphanage, quiet. Staring. Almost as if we're waiting for him to wake up and calls us idiots.

Where our story began, it also ends. The first time, I brought a little boy. The second time, although not little he was still young and now in a coffin.

"Idiots," I say, in the place of him. "He'd be whining right now. There's still Knives out there, and we haven't finished him off. An end to human suffering."

The ghost of a smile wiped across Vash's face. "Well," he sighs, drying his tears, "aren't you hungry?"

[ jusqu'au boustiste]

As if we're street kids, we scavenge empty houses for vegetables, rice, and among other ingredients before coming back to the orphanage.  It's a storm, probably making more with eyes bigger than our growling stomachs.

The door bursts open, Livio finally recovered. "Where's Big Brother Nicholas?" he cries in worry, once seeing us eating. His eyes rest on Vash's hair, more than half a jet black now.

Vash swallows uncomfortably. "He's dead. We buried him," he replies. "You, most of all, should understand why."

Livio sits down, silent while the grief seems to pull his mind from us.

"Eat," Vash orders.

"I don't want to."

I push the plate towards him. "You need your energy. Your big brother was like my little brother, so you should at least understand why I don't like you. But he's got an unfinished battle we need to fight. So while I don't intend on being friends, we're allies now. And I won't carry you." I point to the food again. "Eat."