Commissioned [completed]

Chapter 38 - sunrise

Gravity doubled as Terzo led you to the sunrise. He had to pull you into the light; your waning strength sunk as you met the ladder. The hatch opened out to a mausoleum and a garden of angel statues. Perhaps the sewer was connected to all the cemeteries in town? You didn't think it was the same as the first one.

Terzo held you up on shaky legs. "Pretty," you blinked tiredly.

You didn't know what was happening when you were being handled, tugged and dumped in something long and warm. You distantly realised you were wet and shaking as your body remembered warmth. You looked to Terzo as you were then swimming in his purple pope-dress.

"Suits you, Papa," he said softly, his arm surrounding your waist.

"Huh... thanks..."

His blood-spattered mouth pulled, brows drawing painfully. Closed the space between you and touched the back of your head so your forehead met his vestment-dressed collarbone. He stroked your matted sodden hair. "Is there anything I can do, ______?"

"Not anything you haven't already done," there was a kind of despair beyond sadness and a fear beyond scared. It was a combination of both and neither. You kept poking the place you knew where both emotions should be, but you felt nothing. You were still in freeze. Your body was still in a place where it would be easy for you to die, and it wouldn't hurt. It wouldn't be scary or sad; it would just—be.

He was still stroking your hair, and you remembered the feeling of it. "I am sorry, mio caro Pittore."

"It's okay, Terzo, only if you're sorry that it happened, not if you think you've done something wrong...." your voice was distant and alien, with something like awe. In awe that this was all happening. In shock. "You've done nothing wrong."

He squeezed you tighter.

"What happened after...?" It was the voice of an ignorant child.

"Uh, the ghouls couldn't get to us because those... righteous assholes fucking ensnared them."

"what is ensnared? Are they okay?"

"They trapped them, cut them off from my soul. I found them once special had removed their force... but you were already gone."

"How did they lure them in? Titties and beer?"

He huffed in your ear, but his voice turned serious. "Mimicry, actually, they had some of your blood, threw your voice."

"How...?" You pulled away in thought. His arm encircled you to keep you upright. "The police were there when I bled buckets at that first crime scene. They obviously weren't there to help so..." you shrugged. "Assholes."

"Some husks can be made to sound like someone... I have known Sodo for a very fucking long time; I don't think I've seen him so pissed off," his voice was gravel.

"Promising blood and not following through might do that," you tried to laugh, but only some tired sound came out.

"He... he disobeyed me, actually," he said almost thoughtfully.

"Huh. That's not possible, though, right?"

"I have heard it can be quite painful to pull off, fatal if it goes against the contract. He ran ahead without us." He was looking at you then, white eye lightly glowing.

"Uh. Weird. Don't poke a hungry ghoul." You shrugged limply, feeling the space where there had been a blade in your torso. "Did you know he had the blade? I dropped it...."

"No... no, I fucking did not." He gave you a tired look; he had summoned that special ghoul twice.

You nodded like it meant anything. You were empty. Drained of blood and spirit.