Chapter Text
1 - Nihil
Terzo was nervous as he listened to Nihil go over all the different texts he would have to commit to memory within the next week. He was only twelve, but being part of the Emeritus bloodline put a lot of responsibility on his shoulders. Since he could remember, Terzo’s life had been all about preparing to be Papa one day. While all the other children went to the ministry’s school, he was homeschooled by Nihil and Imperator about all the different rituals a Papa was expected to know. It was overwhelming. A permanent coil of anxiety and dread had taken residence in Terzo’s gut, twisting itself around his insides and squeezing tight whenever a new ritual or text was introduced to him.
“Terzo,” Nihil suddenly said sharply, looking up from the thick book he was reading to glare at the twelve-year-old across from him. “Stop fidgeting, it is rather distracting.”
Terzo hadn’t even realized he had been repeatedly clapping his hands until that moment. “Sorry,” he murmured, placing his hands in his lap.
Nihil simply shook his head slightly before continuing to drone on as he read the book out loud to Terzo, explaining which parts he would have to memorize for mass.
Only a few moments later, Nihil looked up suddenly from the book and narrowed his eyes. “Terzo,” he sighed. His tone was heavy with disapproval and carried an underlying note of anger.
Terzo, in all his anxiety about the thought of having to lead mass one day, had started clapping again. “I’m really sorry, father,” he apologized quickly. He glared down at his hands for a moment before looking back up at Nihil, shrinking back in his seat slightly as he saw that his father was still glaring at him.
“If you were truly sorry, you would not have done it again,” Nihil snapped.
Terzo simply nodded wordlessly. He didn’t know why his hands seemed to have a mind of their own.
Nihil continued to drone on about important texts, making sure to repeatedly emphasize the fact that Terzo needed to remember when to recite which one. Every time Nihil mentioned mass, that coil of dread in Terzo’s gut gave his insides an uncomfortable squeeze. The thought of having to lead mass terrified him. Sometimes he wished he hadn’t been born an Emeritus. Sometimes he wished he had been born to a random family, whose bloodline didn’t have a predetermined path laid out for each of their offspring.
Abruptly, Terzo realized that he was clapping his hands together again. He quickly stopped, hoping Nihil hadn’t caught his little slip-up, but it was too late.
Nihil shut the book forcefully and he stood up, glaring down at Terzo in a way that made the twelve-year-old shiver.
“What did I say about the clapping?” Nihil hissed.
“I’m sorー”
“Enough!” Nihil interrupted, slamming a fist down on the desk. Terzo flinched, feeling tears come to his eyes as Nihil slowly walked around the desk until he came to a stop next to Terzo.
Trembling, Terzo didn’t dare look up, keeping his gaze fixed on his hands. He didn’t know why his hands always seemed to move almost unconsciously whenever he was feeling stressed or anxious.
“Stand up,” Nihil ordered in a low voice.
Terzo slowly stood, still keeping his eyes downcast. He folded his hands in front of himself, fighting down the urge to start drumming his fingers on his thighs.
“Put your hands out in front of you, back of the hand facing up,” Nihil went on.
Unsure of what was coming next, Terzo did as he was told. This time he snuck a glance at Nihil. His eyes widened as he saw that his father had a ruler in his hand. It wasn’t one of the cheap, plastic ones; it was thick and made of wood, old school like Nihil liked most things to be.
Without warning, Nihil brought the ruler down hard on Terzo’s outstretched hands. Terzo yelped, quickly withdrawing his hands as a stinging pain lanced through them, bringing tears to his eyes.
“Hands!” Nihil shouted.
“Papa, please…” Terzo whimpered.
“Hands, Terzo! Now!” Nihil repeated firmly.
Fighting back a sob for which his punishment would surely be made worse, Terzo held out both hands in front of himself again. Soon after, he heard the sound of wood whistling through the air before Nihil struck his hands with the ruler again. Terzo flinched, but this time he kept his hands outstretched, resisting the urge to tuck them against his chest as they throbbed with pain. Nihil alternated between Terzo’s left and right hand as he repeatedly and mercilessly struck him with the ruler. The pain was excruciating to Terzo. He trembled, unable to stop tears from running down his face as his hands were hit with the ruler again and again.
After what seemed like an eternity, Nihil paused. “I honestly should give you even more whacks for those pathetic tears,” he muttered disdainfully.
This time Terzo couldn’t fight back the sob that tore its way out of his throat. “N-No, please…” he cried. “Papa, please, no. I’m sorry, I-I won’t d-do it again, I promise!”
Nihil merely made a disgusted noise in the back of his throat. “Next time, when you say you are sorry, make sure you mean it,” he hissed. He backed away and turned toward the door, calling out as he went, “Lesson over for now. Hitting you made me hungry.”
Terzo was still trembling as he listened to Nihil leave. Only once he heard the heavy wooden door click shut did he dare to move. He slowly sat back down in his seat and studied his hands. They were decorated in bruises, ranging from an angry red to a deep purple in color. His knuckles had been split open by the unforgiving wood, leaving blood to trickle out of the broken skin. His fingers were also bruised, and the skin had also been broken in some places. The skin underneath his fingernails was so purple it almost looked black.
Whimpering softly, Terzo held his hands close to his chest. The pain was so bad he couldn’t even bend his fingers. How was he supposed to do anything now? More sobs spilled from Terzo’s lips as he curled up on himself. He hadn’t meant to annoy Nihil. His father had only been trying to teach him and Terzo had ruined it with his hand clapping.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered even though he was alone now. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m s-sorry…”
2 - Primo & Secondo
It was well past midnight as Terzo followed Primo and Secondo down the dimly lit corridors of the ministry. He had just turned sixteen, and it was tradition within the Emeritus family for heirs to summon a ghoul at sixteen. Terzo was as nervous as he was excited. He’d always wanted to summon a ghoul, although not for the reasons that ghouls were usually summoned for. Terzo thought ghouls were fascinating. He spent most of his free time reading what little books the ministry library had on them. For a church that relied very heavily on ghouls to function, the clergy seemed to know very little about them. Whenever he could, Terzo would spend time talking to the ghouls, trying to learn as much as he could about their kind.
“I wonder what kind of ghoul I’ll summon,” Terzo mused. Realizing he had fallen slightly behind his brothers, he picked up his pace so he was walking between them. “Is there any way to influence the ritual to summon a particular type of ghoul? I believe it’s possible, but I haven’t found anything in those old ritual books Father made me read.”
“Actually, if you toss a leaf into the summoning sigil, you’ll get an earth ghoul,” Secondo said drily.
“Really?” Terzo gasped. “I wonder why the books never mentioned that. It doesn’t seem like it’s some big secret. I mean, a leaf? Those aren’t exactly hard to find, and…” Terzo trailed off as he noticed Primo and Secondo fighting to keep grins off their faces.
“You…were joking?” Terzo asked hesitantly.
“Obviously,” Secondo replied with a quiet laugh, while Primo just gave Terzo an amused stare.
“Right. Obviously,” Terzo muttered. His pace faltered slightly as he dropped his gaze to stare down at his shoes. Primo and Secondo had that dry, deadpan sense of humor that always confused Terzo. He could never tell when his brothers were joking, and he always felt stupid when he didn’t get it, even if they never made fun of him for it.
As they approached the summoning room, Terzo’s gloom all but dissipated, he raced ahead of his brothers and came to a stop in front of the door. He twirled in place once before flapping his hands, the sheer excitement he felt making it impossible for him to remain still.
“What in Satan’s name are you doing?” Primo grumbled. “Stop that.”
Terzo turned around and saw both of his brothers standing close behind him, fixing him with identical unreadable looks.
“Whatever that was, don’t do it again,” Secondo scolded. “That behavior is ridiculous. It makes you look like a child.”
Terzo was taken aback by his brothers’ reprimands. They’d never reacted that way before. “Sorry,” he whispered. He was mortified to feel tears welling up in his eyes, and he quickly turned back to the door before his brothers could see and scold him for that, too.
Unbeknownst to him, Primo and Secondo were exchanging guilty looks behind his back. Perhaps they had been too harsh. But they both knew how Nihil felt about Terzo’s more…odd behaviors, and they knew the lengths Nihil would go to to stamp out what he referred to as Terzo’s “embarrassing” behavior.
They wanted to protect their little brother. Even if it meant forcing him to hide part of himself.
3 - Sister Imperator
Terzo was rocking back and forth on his seat as he read. He was in the library and had managed to find a book on ghouls he’d never read before. It contained so much information on them, Terzo couldn’t tear his eyes away from the pages. There were so many illustrations, too, detailing what was known about ghoul anatomy and the subcategories of magic that different types of ghouls possessed.
So absorbed in his reading, Terzo didn’t notice the way the two Sisters of sin were watching him from the table next to him, wearing identical looks of disdain on their faces. In fact, he didn’t notice their presence at all, that’s how enraptured he was by his book. He only noticed he wasn’t alone when they started speaking.
“That’s the youngest Emeritus, right?” one of them murmured to the other. “Why is he doing…that?”
“Only Lucifer knows, I suppose,” the other one sighed. “He’s strange, that one. Always doing odd things with his hands or spinning in place.”
“Maybe he was dropped on his head as a baby?”
“Huh, maybe. Or maybe it’s just a bloodline thing.”
“No, it can’t be. His brothers don’t act like that.”
“Well, I guess with three children, not all of them can be perfect.”
“Yeah, one of them had to be the weird one.”
Terzo held his book up to his face to hide the tears gathering in his eyes. Was that what the whole clergy thought of him? Did they all refer to him as ‘the weird one’ behind his back? How was he supposed to be Papa one day if the whole ministry didn’t take him seriously?
Terzo’s chest was tightening, squeezing his lungs as he struggled for breath. His tears spilled over and ran down his face. He gripped the book so hard he could have ripped it in half. He began rocking back and forth more rapidly, although this time it was due to agitation rather than contentment. He was about to have a panic attack, right here in the ministry’s public library in front of two Sisters.
“Oh dear, I think he heard us,” one of the Sisters sighed. She might have sounded remorseful, although the static buzzing in Terzo’s head as he tried to draw in deep breaths made it unclear.
“Let’s, uh…let’s just go,” the other Sister muttered. The two of them got up, and Terzo was mercifully left alone.
There was nobody else in the library at the moment. Terzo let the book fall onto the table as he drew his knees up to his chest, hiding his face as he gasped for breath in between sobs so powerful they shook his whole body.
The distress Terzo felt made something beneath his skin writhe and itch. He grabbed at his hair and tugged hard, hoping to distract himself from the itch. It did nothing and he let out a frustrated cry, balling his hand into a fist and hitting himself in the side of the head a couple of times.
Suddenly there was a hand on Terzo’s shoulder. He flinched, still hugging his knees tightly to his body as he looked up. Sister Imperator was standing over him, looking down at him with a carefully blank face. Terzo’s sobs died down a little. Sister Imperator had always been a mystery to him. She wasn’t cruel like Nihil, but she also wasn’t warm and motherly the way Terzo had seen other mothers around the ministry act towards their children.
“Is everything alright?” Imperator asked, although she didn’t sound like she particularly cared.
“Y-Yeah,” Terzo sniffled. “Sorry, ma’am,” he automatically added, even though he hadn’t been scolded yet.
Sister Imperator peered at the book Terzo had discarded on the table. “Ghouls: An In-Depth Study of the Clergy’s Most Elusive Members,” she read aloud. “I didn’t realize ghoul studies were such a tearjerker. Then again, you always were obsessed with those…creatures.”
Terzo chose not to respond. He didn’t like the way Imperator spat out the word 'creatures' like it left a foul taste on her tongue. She’d always seemed to hate ghouls for some reason, but Terzo could never understand why.
“Terzo,” Imperator sighed suddenly, her tone taking on a grave edge. “I know you’ve always expressed your emotions more, uh, strongly than your brothers, but you need to start controlling yourself more. You’re nineteen; that’s no age to be having a public meltdown like this.”
Terzo lowered his gaze. “Yes, ma’am,” he murmured.
“Good, glad we could reach an understanding,” Imperator beamed with practiced false cheer, giving Terzo a hearty pat on the back. “Now go make yourself presentable for dinner. Your father and I are discussing whether or not to reinstate the Ghost project and we decided you and your brothers should have a say in it since you will one day be its frontmen…”
Sister Imperator’s voice melted into the static still dancing around in Terzo’s mind as he gazed listlessly at the table and the book in front of him. He didn’t feel like going to dinner to discuss ghosts or whatnot. He wanted to go back to his room and hide away from the judging eyes of the ministry, who only ever seemed to focus on everything that made him ‘weird’ and ‘different.’
But Terzo was going to be Papa one day, and Papas didn’t hide just because someone hurt their feelings.
So wiped his tears on the back of his sleeve, stood up, and told Sister Imperator, “I’ll be ready in thirty minutes, ma’am.”
Sister Imperator gave him a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Marvelous. I’ll see you then.”