I was once weak, now look at me

Chapter 2: Game Start

No one's POV

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHA" Lucy laughed cruelly as she looked at the downed and bleeding form of Mariko after cutting off her legs.

"Mariko!" Kurama shouted as he dashed forward to help his daughter.

"Don't come near me!" Mariko shouted to her father, causing him to stop in his tracks and look at her as she tried to stay where he was.

"Didn't you have plenty of time here." Lucy approached Mariko. Mariko stared up at Lucy with tears in her eyes as she attempted to glare at her.

"You can't use your hands anymore, huh?" Said Lucy, causing Mariko's eyes to widen as she turned away from the young diclinous and started to address Kurama.

"How's it feel? The feeling of people around you dying one by one?" She said as Kurama could only stare at her while she was speaking "Relax. I'll finish you off last." At those words, Kurama started to reflect on all the things Lucy did to those he cared about.

'Just... for how long have my tears been held within?' The image of Nana on the ground, blood flowing from where her arms and legs had been cut off flashed in his mind. 'And for how long will they be...' He looks at his daughter, covered in blood, crying, and missing her legs. 'For how long will all this bloodshed go on?' He remembers his secretary, Kisaragi, her smiling face with tears flowing from her eyes as Lucy beheaded her right in front of him.

'Enough...' "Lucy" Kurama said as he took a step forward "Kill me... If it will satisfy you, kill me!!!" He said to her "In return, don't touch Mariko anymore."

'Papa...' thought Mariko as she looked towards her father, trying to trade his life for hers.

Kurama then turned to look at Shirakawa and then addressed her "Shirakawa, I'm entrusting everything to you."

'No... No you can't...' thought Shirakawa as tears started to leak from her eyes as she looked at Kuruma 'Even if the room monitor sacrifices himself, Mariko will...'

"No way!" Nana shouted as she suddenly appeared in front of Kurama, putting herself between him and Lucy. "Papa escape! Hurry! Nana will fight Lucy!" She said, trying to save the life of the man she viewed as her father from the diclinous queen.

Kuruma looked down at his adopted daughter sadly and placed a hand on top of her head.

"Thank you," he said to her. Removing his hand from her head as he started to walk past her and toward Lucy "But it's ok now."

"Papa...?" Nana muttered in despair, tears falling from her eyes as she looked at him.

As Kuruma kept moving forward, he paused a bit as he turned his head to look at something else that was near them and gazed sadly at what he saw.

What he saw was a young man who was face down on the ground in a pool of his own blood. The young man's head was covered in blonde hair with a pair of white horns sticking out of it. He wore a faded grey shirt and shorts that were now soaking up the blood spilling out of him from the large wound on his chest. However, the one thing that Kurama took immediate notice of was the dead and lifeless look that remained present in the young man's eyes throughout the entire time he knew him.

This young man was subject 324 or, if Kuruma wanted to use his actual name, Jaune.

Jaune was a complete mystery to him and those of the research institute when he first arrived, even how they found him was strange.

One day, they found him outside the front gate of the research institute. They were all confused at how he suddenly appeared as no helicopters or ships had come to the island recently so he couldn't have been dropped off here by anyone. When they went to investigate him, all they found with him was a note that said, "His name is Jaune, take good care of him."