--it's the only ending for us.
[ 一 ]
He starts remembering when he is five.
It begins with nightmares- every child has them, and even as a child, he is wiser than most. So when he starts seeing flames every time he closes his eyes; when he starts remembering just how human flesh blisters and burns; when he starts remembering the smell of blood and sweat and death, he does not wake in screams.
He continues to dream.
In his dreams, he remembers walking alone for years, hearing nothing but the sound of his own teeth chattering. Even that, he remembers, is a sound torn away by a cold wind that sends shards of ice cutting across his skin. He dreams that there was no solace to be sought in counting the seconds as they passed, no distraction from the pain- and in his dreams, a second lasts a thousand years.
(If you wish, you may imagine this: a bird carries a grain of sand in its mouth from one end of the earth to another, before returning to where it started, and begining again- imagine the time it takes for a mountain to form. And then, imagine a time longer than that.
If you wish, if you can imagine, then you may even begin to come close to how long it was that he dreamed he was in hell.)
At the age of five, Rokudou Mukuro has no need to imagine what he already knows.
[ 二 ]
It's noted once, scribbled down and then forgotten, that he stares into shadows- it seems that he always has.
There are, he knows, shadows everywhere. The researchers who stare through him as they mark down notes on their papers have faces that are cast over with a sense of desperation, and looks in their shadowed eyes that reminds him of the nothing so much as ghosts.
There's dead- he remembers someone (or something) telling him, a lifetime ago- and there's dead. Which one will you be?
The researchers, the scientists, they are their own type of dead. He sees them walking under the orders of their superiors who work under the orders of their superiors- it's a chain of command that's devoid of any sort of life. There's an insatiable hunger in their eyes as they look past him, past all the children and into what they could potentially become.
They do not have the long, thin necks or distended stomachs that he remembers of the lingering spirits of the dead, still clinging to an empty hunger, but they might as well. For all that they are, they might as well wander the earth for years in search for a sustenance they'll never receive.
It makes things simpler for him, when he decides to kill them all.
There's little problem he sees in getting rid of something that's already dead.
[ 三 ]
He is eight, now.
And around him, the children are but animals. Not wise enough or knowledgeable enough to count as humans, having only the barest comprehension of the world they live in. Their shape, their form is otherwise, but in mind-
-it suits him, he feels, that he is thought of as one of them.
He watches them critically as they play in their little dramas amongst one another. He sees and he listens and he never speaks. There are words and worlds away that he remembers walking in, and in all of them, it had always suited him to observe.
This is what he sees:
Not far from him, there's a child of around his age. The boy takes on the shape and form and features of various creatures. And not far from that boy, another one who watches the proceedings with haunted eyes, at once comprehending and fearful.
There's a moment where a smile touches Mukuro's lips at the sight, though only briefly; it's a sort-of-memory of his, too- but he's no longer a beast, he no longer needs to be one. Still, there's a thought, there (nostalgia, perhaps).
He will remember this.
Two years later, when the smell of blood hangs heavy in the air around him, he will turn to those boys.
'Come with me,' he'll say, 'we'll wash this world clean with blood.'
Two years later, Joushima Ken and Kaikimoto Chikusa agree.
[ 四 ]
It is not, of course, as simple as that. He would have to be foolish to assume it would be so, and he had never been a foolish individual. But he is not acting alone now, and that, in itself, is something.
There is Ken, and then there is Chikusa.
Here's something that facinates him. Mukuro will never truly understand what it means to trust another fully and completely; he's never bothered to believe in anything other than himself. And if he believes in himself, then why would others not believe in him?
And the both of them, Mukuro knows, has every reason to have that faith (for he has never lied to them, merely never told them all the truths he knows-), and for this, because of this, he cannot help but laugh. So while he is in their presence, he laughs to himself, and when Ken starts and Chikusa looks up at him over his spectacles, he leans forward and asks:
'I'm curious. What would it take for you to leave my side?'
There is a slight shrug from Chikusa and a snarl from Ken-
'Your order to,' Chikusa replies, while Ken simply turns away, refusing to contemplate the thought.
Yes, Mukuro thinks. I could kill the both of you, and I could bring you back as illusions so real they would believe that they had never died. I could make you believe, completely and utterly, in me and me alone. I could have you kill for me, and believe that the intentions were yours all along. I could condemn you to the deepest pits of hell, if I wished. I could kill the both of you, and you would come back, not as humans or ghosts but as demons, and even then, I could have you follow my every whim.
But there's no need for me to do that, when you'll convince yourself to do so alone.
[ 五 ]
It takes years for him to establish a reputation for what he now thinks of as his gang. But mere years are nothing in comparison to the eons he has spent trapped in his own mind while he sleeps. He does not stop dreaming as the seasons pass in turn, and in his dreams, he walks a ground cracked by fire and ice; he watches the universe unfold beneath him.
Sometimes, he finds it more pleasant to remain awake.
(But only sometimes.)
So years pass, and he grows older. But because he walks now in the shell of a human (and remembers what it meant to be a god), it is inevitable that he will, in his life, encounter doubt, desire and danger. It's pathetic, really. A form of existence that could be so much, and yet lends itself to so little, that's so simple to manipulate-
-And Lancia is everything he could have ever hoped for.
Mukuro finds it simple. Too simple to convince Lancia to believe in the lies behind an earnest smile, in murmured words of endearment. Too simple to awaken that self-doubt, that anger, all those patient lingering emotions that he nurtures so very carefully.
Too simple to nudge the man one way or another, such that when the time comes and Lancia finds himself the only survivor of a dead family, he cracks and breaks and turns to the only person who has never abandoned him.
Mukuro laughs and laughs and laughs.
It's the shittiest possible world to live in, and he's amazed at how simple it all is.
[ 六 ]
And then Mukuro wakes up.
He hears nothing but the sound of his heartbeat and the blood rushing through his veins, sees nothing but the muted gray that counts as the darkest possible shade that human eyes can see. Of what use are illusions when there is no one to view them?
It is a suitable hell, he thinks, the edges of his lips tilting up in a smile at the irony. The dreams of the past are entertaining, for what they are worth, and the tortures that humans can devise for each other are gloriously twisted, for all that they count. It is only a matter of time, though, and years mean nothing to him, even as he remembers the years he spent in pain, starving, ignorant, murderous, human-
Oh, but every hell has its paths, and he knows all of them.
He is not the only one.
So when he first meets Nagi, it is like looking into a mirror from both sides at once, peering through the reflection, only to see himself inside.
'I could let you walk away from it all,' he says, 'and all you would have to do is to let me walk with you.'
There is a pause, and then she says: 'It would be different.'
A different form of hell.
'Yes,' he agrees with a smile, 'and you would own it.'
Not once does he say it, but it is there, between the both of them, as they both look through each other in a world which does not exist anywhere but in their minds. Not once does Nagi speak of it, but it is there, between the both of them, when she reaches out her hand to take his.
You and I, we're the same.
It is a knowledge, a fact that they both know is always there, even as they open their eyes-
And then Chrome wakes up.
It's the best of all possible worlds.