Chapter IV: The Serpent's Refrain
Area 11: Shipping Docks—Where Shadows Feast
In the witching hour, when honest men slumber, and devils dance, the shipping docks lay draped in darkness like a corpse in silk. Only the damned remained—overtime workers cursing their fate, security guards nursing lukewarm coffee, all unaware that Death himself had come calling, dressed in black and red and white.
Two workers wrestled with crates, their laughter cutting through the night like broken glass. One—let's call him the Dead Man, though he didn't know it yet—cracked a joke about Elevens and rice fields, the kind of casual cruelty that festers in an occupation like rot in wood.
His companion laughed. The sound died in his throat.
Thunk.
Metal kissed shipping container, a lover's whisper in the dark. The Dead Man turned, saw the shuriken embedded in steel, its tip weeping crimson tears.
Time fractured. Slowed. Stopped.
His friend—John, wasn't it? Always John—clutched his throat where crimson blossomed between trembling fingers like some obscene flower. The man collapsed, drowning on dry land, choking on his own mortality.
"Oh my God! John, are you—"
A hand. Over his mouth. Silencing. Smothering. Then—
CRACK.
The sound of vertebrae surrendering, bones singing their final song. His neck twisted at an angle nature never intended, and the Dead Man discovered he'd been aptly named all along. His body crumpled beside John's, two puppets with cut strings, and the only witness was the sea, whispering its ancient indifference against the dock.
Elsewhere—because Death is nothing if not efficient, nothing if not thorough—a security officer swept his rifle across space, seeing nothing, suspecting less. He failed to notice the small cylinder that landed at his feet, failed to notice until it hissed and bloomed, smoke unfurling like poisonous petals.
"Wh... what the hell?!" Anger first—always anger before fear, that most human of reflexes.
Then pain. Sharp. Absolute. A blade between his ribs, kissing his heart, whispering hush now, hush.
He looked down—they always look down—and saw the sword protruding from his chest, his own blood painting abstract art on his uniform. He opened his mouth to scream, but a hand clamped over it, and the scream died stillborn in his throat.
The third guard emerged like a man walking onto a stage he doesn't realize has become an abattoir. "Hey, what's going on? I heard something!" His flashlight carved cones of brightness through darkness, illuminating nothing, revealing less.
Wait—there! Shadows within shadows, figures that moved like smoke, like whispers, like nightmares given form. But when he focused his beam, they weren't there, had never been there, would never be there again.
"God, this place is playing tricks on my mind." The words tasted like copper and fear.
A sound behind him. He spun. Nothing. Just darkness and his escalating heartbeat and the dawning realization that he was the mouse and something was the cat and the game had already been won.
"What the fu—"
Steel sang. Blood answered. A thin red smile opened across his throat, and slowly—oh so slowly—gravity claimed its due. His head toppled, separated from its moorings, and his final sight was a figure in crimson wielding katanas like extensions of his arms, flanked by specters in white and black.
Big Boss.
Gray Fox.
Big Boss—the legendary soldier, the man who'd walked with Death and called it brother—wiped blood from his blade with practiced nonchalance. He sheathed it with a whisper of steel on leather, then surveyed his assembled soldiers with a single eye that burned like a forge.
A nod. Hand signals flowing like poetry written in violence.
They ascended—ghosts climbing to heaven, demons descending from it—leaping between buildings with inhuman grace, invisible to the honest world below.
Babel Tower—Sin's Cathedral
Babel Tower rose like a monument to human vice, a temple where money was god and morality was the sacrifice. Inside: poker machines blinking like mechanical eyes, chess tournaments where kings fell without bloodshed, gambling tables where fortunes evaporated like morning dew.
And darker attractions. Bloodsports. Eleven fighters pounding flesh against flesh while Britannians bet on the outcome, reducing human suffering to entertainment, to profit.
At a poker table—velvet green like a surgical field, cards dealt like tarot predicting death—sat a man who was both more and less than human. Dark coat with crimson accents. Top hat casting shadows across features already hidden by a mask that caught the light and reflected nothing, revealed nothing.
This was Zero. The man who would be king, would be god, would remake the world in his image, regardless of the cost. Tonight he wore the alias "The Boss"—a private joke, a twisted homage, a name that tasted like ashes and ambition.
He studied his cards with single-minded intensity: straight flush, destiny dealt in diamonds.
"So, Mr. Boss, or whatever the hell you want to call yourself—" The crime lord's voice dripped skepticism like poison from a blade. "—I want to know why you need access to the underground passages leading to the ghettos."
Zero's voice emerged smooth as silk, cold as winter: "I have my reasons. All you need to understand is that I possess the means to make this transaction mutually beneficial."
Blue chips clattered onto green felt—click-click-click—like teeth chattering in fear.
"Look, it's not that we won't grant access," another boss interjected, matching the bet with visible reluctance. "But if we give you those routes, how do we know this won't come back to bite us? How do we know you won't devour us?"
Zero's fingers snapped—snap—sharp as a gunshot, sudden as revelation. "I assure you, gentlemen, this arrangement will prove more beneficial than your limited imaginations can currently comprehend."
A woman approached—click-click-click—heels on marble like a metronome counting down to something inevitable. Long black hair cascading like midnight waterfalls, glasses framing eyes that held secrets deeper than oceans. Her red dress clung like sin, like promise, like the prelude to damnation.
EVA—though tonight she played another role, wore another mask, danced another dance in the endless performance.
She carried a briefcase, her movements liquid grace, predatory elegance. "Here you are, darling," she purred, accent European and exotic, pressing crimson lips to his mask where a cheek should be, would be, could be beneath the metal.
As she walked away—click-click-click—she glanced back, winked, left the crime lords transfixed like men who'd glimpsed Medusa and felt themselves turning to stone, to statue, to nothing but desire and confusion.
"Gentlemen." Zero's voice cut through their stupor like a blade through silk. "If you've finished your pubescent ogling, I have something that will transform your primitive hesitation into enthusiastic cooperation."
The briefcase opened with a whisper of hinges. Inside: a small glass vial containing liquid that caught the light and held it, trapped it, owned it.
"Gentlemen, I present to you: Refrain."
They leaned forward—moths to flame, fish to hook, fools to fate.
"A neurochemical compound of devastating efficacy," Zero continued, his voice taking on an almost reverent quality. "It allows users to relive their happiest memories with perfect clarity. But here's the beautiful tragedy, the exquisite irony—it's so profoundly addictive that one taste creates lifelong dependency. They'll chase that first high forever, pay anything for it, do anything for it."
"What makes this different from standard narcotics?" one boss challenged, though his eyes betrayed his interest, his greed, his hunger.
"Simple." Zero's single eye gleamed behind his mask. "Law enforcement catalogs known substances. They build defenses, create countermeasures, and establish protocols. But this—" He tapped the vial. "—this is virgin territory. Unclassified. Unregulated. Unconquered. You'll establish supply chains, create dependencies, and build empires before the government even realizes the battlefield has shifted. By the time Refrain becomes illegal—and it will, inevitably, deliciously—you'll already control the market. Supply and demand, gentlemen. I'm offering you the monopoly on synthetic nostalgia."
The crime lords exchanged glances—silent conversations in eyebrow raises and barely perceptible nods. They folded their cards one by one, turning toward Zero with smiles that held no warmth, only calculation.
"You give us Refrain, we give you the underground routes."
"Then we have achieved mutual understanding." Zero revealed his hand—straight flush, victory written in suits and numbers—claiming the pot with casual inevitability.
Business concluded, Zero retreated to shadows—he was always most comfortable in shadows—leaning against walls that had witnessed countless sins and would witness countless more.
EVA approached, now dressed in tactical black, the red dress abandoned like yesterday's disguise. "I see you've returned to practicality," Zero observed.
"As much as I appreciate weaponizing male stupidity," she replied, sarcasm sharp enough to draw blood, "I prefer clothing that doesn't compromise mobility when everything inevitably goes to hell."
She leaned beside him, and for a moment, they were just two soldiers in a war without end. "I don't like this. Operating without Snake, without his presence, his guidance, his—"
"He's in Europe," Zero interrupted, "managing political infrastructure, ensuring our long-term viability. Besides—" His voice softened, almost imperceptibly. "—he trusts you. Implicitly. Completely."
They stood in companionable silence, observing the casino floor where the wealthy played at risk while risking nothing, where Elevens fought for survival while Britannians bet on death.
"Why did you do it?" EVA's voice cut through his contemplation like a blade through butter.
Zero turned, his mask reflecting her face at her, distorted, multiplied.
"You understand the neurotoxic effects, the cognitive degradation, the way Refrain destroys the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex. Why sell it to criminals who'll distribute it to desperate Japanese civilians already crushed under occupation?"
Silence stretched between them like a chasm, like an abyss, like the moral gap Zero had long ago decided to leap across.
"Because—" His voice emerged quiet, terrible in its conviction. "—we must do ugly things to achieve beautiful ends. When Refrain floods Area 11, when both Elevens and Britannians find themselves equally enslaved to synthetic memory, questions will emerge. Demands will surface. 'Where's the cure? Where's the treatment? Where's the salvation?'"
"Making them turn to us—to the Patriots—for rescue," EVA finished, understanding dawning like a cold sunrise. "Positioning us as saviors rather than architects of their suffering."
"Precisely. We create the disease, we provide the cure, we secure loyalty through manufactured dependence." He paused, then added, softer: "Understanding doesn't require approval, EVA. I'm not asking for your blessing."
"Good," she said, voice hard as diamond, cold as winter. "Because you wouldn't receive it. Naked Snake would never—"
"Naked Snake isn't here," Zero interrupted, and something in his voice suggested this absence was both tragedy and opportunity. "I make the decisions he'd consider too ruthless, too pragmatic, too necessary. That's my role. My burden. My purpose."
Before EVA could respond, armed men approached like a small army, like a declaration of war, like the inevitable consequence of dealing with criminals.
Leading them was the Black King—a man who'd built an empire on suffering and called it business, who trafficked in flesh and called it commerce.
"Ah, Boss, what a pleasant surprise to encounter you here." His smile was all teeth and threat.
"King, I presume?" Zero's voice remained utterly calm, as if armed guards were merely a mild inconvenience rather than a lethal threat. "I doubt this visit is social in nature."
King's smile curdled like milk left in summer heat. "You were supposed to deliver a shipment of... specialty merchandise. Beautiful young women from the ghetto. They never arrived."
Zero's fist clenched—the only outward sign of the rage burning beneath his controlled exterior. King wanted sex slaves, women reduced to objects, humanity commodified and packaged in bunny costumes.
He'd agreed tentatively, provisionally, falsely—purely to gain casino access, never intending to honor such moral bankruptcy.
"No." The word emerged flat, final, absolute. "I traffic in chemicals, in weapons, in ideas. Not people. Never people."
Guards drew weapons—click-click-click—safeties disengaging, hammers cocking, destiny chambering rounds.
King sighed theatrically, shaking his head like a disappointed teacher. "So unfortunate. After I welcomed you into this establishment, granted you access to our world, you choose betrayal?"
He drew his own pistol, pressing cold steel to Zero's forehead. "In chess—your brothers' preferred game, I'm told—this would be checkmate."
Zero laughed. Actually laughed—rich, genuine, utterly unexpected.
"You know, it's fascinating. Everyone I encounter obsesses over chess—Big Boss, Ocelot, even you—but I've never played." His voice dropped, taking on a quality that suggested hurricanes gathering on distant horizons. "I prefer a different game entirely. Something more... sequential."
Suddenly—simultaneously—lights died, music ceased, darkness devoured.
King's confidence faltered, cracked, shattered. Even in darkness, he could see Zero's silhouette, now relaxed rather than threatened, now predator rather than prey.
"I prefer dominoes," Zero purred, his voice carrying through blackness like a judge pronouncing sentence. "Especially that delicious moment when you tip the first piece and watch the cascade, the chain reaction, the inevitable collapse of everything that seemed so solid, so permanent, so safe."
Outside—Where Angels Prepare to Fall
Outside Babel Tower, civilians noticed the blackout and wondered. Whispered. Worried. None noticed the elite soldiers who'd severed the power, who crouched in shadows wearing night like second skins.
On adjacent rooftops, special forces operatives moved like flowing water, like hunting wolves, like death given military training and divine purpose.
Leading them was Gray Fox—the cyborg ninja whose body was more machine than man, whose loyalty to Big Boss transcended reason, transcended mortality, transcended humanity itself.
They reached the tower's edge and deployed grappling hooks that bit into concrete with satisfying thunks. They climbed, hand over hand, ascending like spiders, like nightmares, like the future come to claim the present.
Glass shattered—tinkle-tinkle-crash—as they breached windows and flowed inside, drawing weapons with practiced silence.
In the security room, chaos erupted like a wound suddenly opened. "Get headquarters on the line! Now! Something's happened to the power—"
The head of security never finished his sentence.
They heard it first—shing-shing—the whisper of katanas leaving scabbards, the promise of steel meeting flesh.
Everyone turned to see Big Boss standing in the doorway, twin blades gleaming like frozen lightning, like captured starlight, like death made elegant.
Security officers grabbed weapons, shouting: "Is that an armed Eleven!?"
Big Boss's single eye narrowed—cold, furious, insulted.
"I'm Japanese."
Three words. Simple. Direct. Devastating.
Then he moved, and the world exploded into violence.
Back with Zero—Where Dominoes Begin to Fall
King shoved Zero to the ground, pressing his pistol to the masked man's forehead with trembling fury. "You son of a bitch! You orchestrated this, didn't you?! Didn't you?!"
Zero's voice emerged calm, almost amused: "Careful, King. That hand you're using so carelessly—you might lose it."
King pulled the trigger—BANG—and screamed as his own hand exploded, bullet passing through flesh and bone like judgment through the guilty.
Every guard turned weapons on Zero and EVA.
"Kill them!" King shrieked, cradling his destroyed hand, blood pumping between fingers. "I want them dead! DEAD!"
Something whistled through the air—shink—and King's hand fell away completely, severed at the wrist, tumbling to the floor like discarded garbage.
His screams reached new octaves, transcended language, and became pure animal agony.
Guards looked down at the shuriken embedded in the floor, looked up as Gray Fox descended from the ceiling like an avenging angel, like divine retribution, like the answer to prayers they'd never spoken.
He landed in a crouch before Zero, drawing swords in one fluid motion that seemed almost choreographed, almost artistic.
For one crystalline moment, nobody moved. The world held its breath.
Then a guard's finger tightened on his trigger, and Gray Fox exploded into motion.
He closed the distance before the bullet could leave the chamber, blade opening the guard's chest from collarbone to sternum—slash—blood spraying in arterial arcs that painted abstract expressionism on walls and floor and everything.
The guard's eyes widened in final comprehension, then glazed as his strings were cut.
Another guard fired—BANG-BANG-BANG—but Gray Fox was already gone, leaping impossibly high, delivering a spinning kick that snapped a second guard's neck with a sound like breaking branches, like cracking ice, like termination.
He landed, pivoted, drove his blade through a third guard's throat—squelch—and the man fell gurgling, drowning in his own blood on dry land.
Three dead in three seconds. The arithmetic of violence, the mathematics of mortality.
Three more guards behind him opened fire—BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG—bullets tearing through space where Gray Fox had been, had been, would never be again.
He backflipped over the barrage, landed behind them with inhuman grace, slashed one guard's spine—crack-slash—pivoted to open another's throat in a spray of crimson, then delivered a brutal downward strike that cleaved the third from shoulder to hip, bisecting him like a grotesque magic trick.
The guard's scream died halfway through, replaced by the wet sound of internal organs meeting external reality.
Surviving criminals tried to flee—scramble-panic-run—but doors opened to reveal Fox Hound soldiers in full tactical gear, weapons drawn, exits sealed.
No escape. No mercy. No hope.
King tried crawling away, leaving a slug trail of blood, whimpering like a wounded animal. He looked up to find Big Boss standing above him, expression carved from ice and contempt.
"P-please, I have money, I have connections, I have—"
Big Boss drove his katana through King's skull—crunch-squelch—pinning him to the floor like an insect in a collector's case.
Gray Fox and Big Boss approached Zero, who stood with arms crossed, completely unfazed by the violence, the death, the carnage surrounding him.
"Big Boss. Gray Fox. Always punctual." Zero's voice carried genuine admiration, actual warmth. "Never a doubt."
Both soldiers bowed—subordinates to the commander, pawns to the king, believers to god.
"Zero-san," Big Boss said, and as the name echoed through the casino, remaining civilians gasped, choked, and understood.
They'd heard stories. Legends. Nightmares. The man who'd ended wars started others, who played chess with nations and called it strategy.
As Zero, Big Boss, EVA, and Gray Fox prepared to leave, Zero turned to his legendary soldier, his greatest weapon, his most dangerous piece on the board.
"Big Boss." His voice dropped, becoming something ancient and terrible. "Give the order. No witnesses. The only ones permitted to survive have already departed."
A pause, pregnant with meaning, heavy with consequence.
"Kill them all."
Big Boss raised his fist—clenched—and every Fox Hound soldier drew weapons in perfect synchronization.
Then the slaughter began.
Screams erupted like volcanic fury, like dammed rivers breaking free, like the sound hell makes when it comes to earth.
Zero's group walked through the massacre with measured steps, boots splashing in spreading crimson, witnessing every death, every terror, every final moment.
A blonde woman ran—click-click-click—heels on marble, mascara running, hope dying with every step. A soldier grabbed her hair—yank—jerked her head back, drove his blade through her exposed throat—squelch—and let her drop like discarded meat.
A man sprinted for the exit, actually reached it, touched the handle before a sword opened his abdomen like a zipper, like a package, like Pandora's box revealing all the wet things humans keep inside. He fell screaming, trying to hold his intestines in place, failing, dying.
Two women huddled under a poker table—please-god-please-no-please—praying to deities who'd long ago abandoned this place. The table flipped—crash—revealing three soldiers who stabbed repeatedly, mechanically, efficiently, until prayers became gurgles became silence.
Zero continued walking, stepped over bodies, through blood, past dying people who reached toward him with grasping hands and pleading eyes.
He stopped before a Japanese girl in a bunny costume—one of King's victims, his property, his merchandise. Blood covered her like paint, and her right arm ended in a ragged stump, severed during the chaos.
"W-why?" Tears carved tracks through blood and makeup. "Why are you doing this?!"
Zero drew his sidearm—click—pressed it to her forehead, and his voice emerged soft, almost gentle:
"Because the ends justify the means. Because if I must wade through rivers of blood to reach the promised shore, then I will wade. I will swim. I will drown the world if necessary."
BANG.
She crumpled, and Zero stepped over her corpse without breaking stride.
Behind them, five people fled in desperate congregation—run-run-run—but soldiers met them with steel and bullets and the brutal efficiency of professional killers. Limbs separated. Bodies fell. Screams faded.
One soldier threw an incendiary device that exploded near slot machines—WHOOM—and flames erupted, began consuming everything, filling the air with smoke and the smell of burning flesh and plastic and sin.
Other soldiers dragged corpses to the room's center, arranging them in patterns that suggested ritual, suggested meaning, suggested message.
One pulled out a brush, dipped it in blood—so much blood, endless blood, a painter's paradise—and began creating on the wall: the Patriots' symbol, the logo of Zero's vision, the mark of the organization that would save humanity by controlling it.
The screams gradually ceased—scream... scream... scream... silence—replaced by crackling flames and the wet sounds of soldiers completing their grisly work.
Some bodies they hanged from ceiling fixtures, left dangling like grotesque decorations, like warnings, like art.
Hours Later—Where Truth Comes Calling
The door exploded inward—CRASH—as Britannian soldiers poured through, Princess Cornelia leading them, expecting a terrorist attack, expecting Zero (the masked rebel), expecting anything but this.
Her eyes widened—genuine shock breaking through military discipline—and rage followed immediately after.
"WHO THE HELL DID THIS?!"
Her voice cracked like thunder, like judgment, like impotent fury confronting the incomprehensible.
Soldiers removed helmets to vomit—retch-retch-splatter—unable to process the abattoir before them: corpses everywhere, dismembered, displayed, arranged. Some burned beyond recognition. Others hanging like meat in a butcher's shop. The smell—blood and smoke and evacuated bowels and the peculiar sweetness of roasted human flesh—overwhelmed training, discipline, sanity.
Not one survivor. Not one witness. Not one soul left to tell the tale.
On the wall, painted in blood that had already begun to oxidize, turning brown, turning to rust, turning to history:
The Patriots' symbol. Unmistakable. Undeniable. Unforgivable.
A declaration of war written in bodies and blood.
Shipping Docks—Where Poison Becomes Profit
Back at the shipping yard, a crowd gathered like pilgrims, like addicts, like the damned. They pushed and shoved and craved, all seeking the same thing: Refrain, the drug that promised happiness, delivered dependency, and asked only your soul as payment.
Some had already dozed, their eyes glazed with artificial bliss, minds lost in synthetic memory, reality abandoned for chemical paradise.
On a nearby rooftop, three figures observed: Zero in full regalia, Big Boss radiating controlled lethality, EVA watching with expressions that mixed triumph and disgust.
"Operation Poison proceeds exactly as calculated," Zero murmured, voice carrying satisfaction and something darker, something hungry. "Phase one: distribution. Phase two: addiction. Phase three: salvation. The Patriots will rise on stairs built from broken minds and desperate hearts."
Among the crowd, a housemaid with long dark brown hair reached the front of the line. She exchanged money for Refrain with trembling hands, her eyes holding oceans of sorrow, lakes of regret, rivers of self-loathing.
"I'm sorry, Kallen," she whispered to herself, to nobody, to the universe that didn't care. "I'm so pathetically weak. So unbearably human. So utterly broken."
She stopped beside a shipping container marked with the Patriots' logo—eye in pyramid, seeing all, knowing all, controlling all—and injected the Refrain with the desperate hunger of the truly lost.
Instantly, sorrow transformed to euphoria. Pain became pleasure. Reality surrendered to memory, and she smiled—smiled—for the first time in months, years, forever.
She slid down beside the container bearing the symbol of her enslavers, her dealers, her saviors, lost in chemical happiness, drowning in synthetic joy, dying by degrees while believing herself finally, finally alive.
Above, Zero watched her fall and felt nothing. No remorse. No guilt. No hesitation.
Just the cold certainty that this—all of this—was necessary. Required. Inevitable.
The ends justify the means.
The ends always justify the means.
And if the world must burn for his vision to rise from ashes—phoenix-like, glorious, perfect—then let it burn.
Let them all burn.
// Author's Note: In this narrative, the Patriots are the architects of Refrain, building empires on addiction and calling it salvation. Zero walks the path between savior and tyrant, and perhaps there's no difference at all.