Chapter Text
Azurewrath.
It glistened greedily off of the moonlight. Azure did not—could not—lay his eyes upon his own self, reflecting on his sharp, mirror-like demise; instead, his back was facing away in blissful naïveté, dotingly stroking a flower’s tender petal underneath his soothing thumb.
He shouldn’t have turned around.
The ghostfire dagger, usually used for rituals of sacrifice — was griped between firm palms with knuckles as white as snow — on the cusp of trembling. And Azure was oblivious to it all, until cold steel thrust into his rosy flesh, piercing with intent.
Though it barely missed his heart, it was driven deep, and he could feel the blade scraping raw against his ribs. They pulled their dagger out with clasped hands and fingers tightly entwined around its handle, as if praying for forgiveness of their sinful deed. The agony elicited a strangled, dismal cry belonging to the helpless man, slicing the air like a shard of broken mirror.
His eyes widened with shrinked pupils, only to look up at a crimson-splattered face; he could’ve sworn their lips were now quivering. Two Time?
“Wh— Why? What have you done?” Azure choked out all he could manage, as he sputtered out more and more blood. It was a burning, searing pain that forced anguished sobs to come out, stray tears rolling down his cheeks. It was easily telling that the blade was laced with poison of his favourite flower — atropa belladonna, the nightshade, one he knew so awfully well. One he wished he’d never known at all.
He knew it was futile to ask any more questions; he just hoped the answer just wasn’t the one he was thinking of. That maybe, just maybe, the Spawn didn’t make them do this. That the cult wasn’t the sole cause.
“I’m sorry.” Their voice was full of welling shame, a heavy knot of remorse settling in the pit of their stomach. That was all they could bring themselves to say.
With Azure’s final, hitching breaths, and his final, wilting strength, he managed to will his limp limb into wiping off the crimson blood that dotted their lips, dull eyes frantically moving to where they kneeled, their hands now trembling violently. It dribbled through the crevices of his fingers, and ran down the faint scars that were rooted in his arms, eventually spilling onto the cold ground, leaving a disturbing pool of filth that tainted his beloved flowers he knew he wouldn’t see again. He winced, his vision blurry, ebbing away like a tide, and before he knew it, he was succumbing to a death caused by someone he never would’ve thought to do this to him. Someone he held dearly to his heart, someone who he thought he had loved. And that was that. His rotting body, bedded and drowned in a sea of his own making, of not only tears: but reams of vividly purple nightshades, now stained in red.
I’m glad it was you, truly…
Azure woke up in a cold sweat, raking and scraping the clothes above his achingly pained heart in claw-like strokes. He awoke in his chambers, and his hat that voiced his crude words for him somehow found its way onto his head.
…How utterly cumbersome.
“Another blithering night terror. My head hurts.” Azure had this recurring nightmare, ever since the day he had died. He couldn’t recall it clearly after he awoke, albeit it stubbornly tormented him all the same, refusing to let go by all means. It left a gnawing ache in his stomach, like a sleeping animal, teeth bared even in slumber. It would only mean that he could not forgive, nor forget that fated betrayal.
Right. He was free of both the oblivion of death and the cult’s grasp, but now he had been ‘forsakened‘ into some unfathomable abyss, whose clutches were inescapable. It was always like he was doomed to be trapped in some way; fleeing once the leash was unclipped, only to be strangled in a different collar.
He was swallowed, consumed with red-and-black mist that encircled him like a shroud, and sent to some eternal purgatory. A new home, though not a perfect paradise. When he arrived, he was not greeted warmly. Rather, he wasn’t greeted at all.
All of the killers resided in a shared limbo between rounds. Yet, no one ever seemed to bother to talk to each other, as most were often stuck, struggling, replaying their own personal hells and problems over and over. They surrendered deeper and deeper into mania as the time passed, wallowing in overwhelming emotion to feed the Spectre’s glutton.
Azurewrath was newly forsakened. He was barely two weeks in, attempting to get used to, let alone grasp the very concept of being put into the Spectre’s twisted game. Though burdened by a potent grief, there was a sliver of a silver lining. The Spectre gave him purpose; a new form that had the capability to kill over and over without rest, as well as a second chance—a second life, perhaps—unlike the spawn, that hoax of a god, had ever done.
It angered him more and more as he thought about the cult. He’d been hiding his doubts about it for an awfully long time, losing his faith over time enough to be called a heretic. The Spawn Cult was demise dressed in the skin of devotion, and its emblem was brandished on his torso, a constant and traumatic reminder of his shameful origins. No matter how many times he tried to cleanse it away, it mocked his futile efforts, whispering just loudly enough for only him to hear, “You were the sacrificial bride for our perfect, obedient lamb.”
He couldn’t remember what occurred in the rounds clearly. It was somewhat of an obscure muddle, like he was possessed by a whole other, more brutal being of a different calibre. Glimpses of the cult members. Of Two Time. Azure was unsure of whether he should be grateful he wouldn’t have to clearly leer at their smile, or fury of not being able to see them clearly get killed. And what a sight it would be, to revel in their pain, just as they had hurt him.
Even the thought of them made it feel as if a starved dog gone feral resided in the back of his throat, waiting for the right moment to bite and tear and rip. Any other emotion dizzied him, and so it was overwritten with one thing: hatred. A hatred so vastly that any trace of the thoughts that missed them were snowed under.
The limbo he dwelled in was an eerie and obscured palace called the ‘Sanctuary’ — the sky was always a sombre bluish-grey, and the inside of the palace always seemed hazy and foggy, carved with strange pillars, marble columns, and tall walls. He’d see the other killers around, but they would always seem… lost. There was a demon-esque child, who didn’t seem to be able to discern between what was reality and what was not. And a bacon hair with a crude hockey mask that obscured his face, who just… seemed to stay and stand in one spot, doing absolutely nothing but stare at the necrobloxicon in his hands.
But among all the killers, someone had caught his eye. Azure had seen him around, dragging around his dual Daemonshank swords in the halls. He had ebony skin, nearly akin to his own, flowing, ivory hair that contrasted it, often tied up, and an exposed ribcage inside of his see-through torso. And lastly, that scintillating, sanguine gaze full of violence that could invoke terror into any survivor that was unfortunately alive to see it. He caught a glimpse of him at the end of a winding hallway, just beyond the veil of his sanity.
Strange. Was ‘curiosity’ the proper word to describe this sickening feeling? Azure scoffed; it was unlike him to want to know about someone, yet alone be drawn to them. Other people only brought misery — he knew that well. Painfully well.
As Azure was staring for a beat too long, that irritated face unexpectedly turned to look back at him. Animosity ardently swelled, from the furrow of his eyebrows, to the throb of his veins, his wrath becoming more and more apparent, as his sinister eyes narrowed into slits.
It’s fine. All was fine. He would just need to turn the corner so as not to see that prick again —
“A special round will commence shortly called ‘Double Trouble’. There will be dual killers. 1x1x1x1 and Azurewrath, you will be the two killers in the upcoming round.” An orotund but disembodied voice echoed throughout the palace, likely belonging to the Spectre. It disturbed his train of thought; could it possibly be that this occurrence was merely for its own personal amusement? Since when were there ‘special rounds?’
And who in the s████n was 1x1x1x1?
“…How unpleasant.” He heard the rumoured hacker mutter too loudly for Azure’s own liking.
“Unpleasant?” Azure seethed, clenching his jaw. What was he doing, gawking at this shitty guy like a lunatic? He wasn’t beguiled earlier, and he indubitably wasn’t now.
1x sneered back at him with a slight frown, striding towards him with precise and firm steps.
Looking up close, he had something salient about him. 1x also had a zipper for a mouth that was unzipped to reveal sharp teeth; Azure’s own zipper was difficult to sever open, so he didn’t bother and let his hat do all the talking.
“Look,” 1x snapped. “Don’t slow me down, and don’t even think of getting in my way, or I won’t think twice of driving my daemonshank through that dumb sigil of yours.” He proceeded to jab a finger to his chest in a condescending manner.
“Shut up. If anything, you’re going to be the one to impede me.” Azure retaliated, swatting his hand away with a tentacle. They were closely matched in stature, but Azure was larger, and looked more than capable of easily cleaving this guy’s head with a meagre swipe of his tendril. Only one killer was needed in a round after all, and he had no time to deal with such insolence.
1x’s words were edged with conceitedness. “Hah! Is that so? Then I’ll slay more than you. Your feeble abilities don’t come close, pest.”
The air grew heavier, almost as if it was suffocating them.
“How arrogant. And if I manage to kill more?”
“There’s no chance a mere noob like you could.”
Both of them fumed, anger budding into poisonous plants, slowly and surely unfurling. But before that poisonous plant could flourish into a tactless scuffle, the resounding voice returned.
“Although your petty arguments delight me greatly, the special round is now initiating. Do try your hardest to please me.”