[POV: Otos Exemplar | Otos: Age 25 | Vanitas: Age 16 | Aretia & Justitia: Age 19]
The rain was falling like threads of lead. I was sitting in the armored carriage when the metal wheels ground to a halt with a sharp screech.
"Young Master..." the driver said through the glass window. "This is the farthest I can go. Any further, and they will notice the carriage, and we will be attacked."
"Never mind. Thank you."
"It is my duty, Young Master. I wish you a safe trip. I will wait for you here."
I pushed the heavy door open and stepped out into the lower city, Cloacina. The air here was saturated with the smell of sulfur, rust, and chemical waste. The sky of the district was obscured by a network of giant pipes spewing toxic green steam. The roads were narrow alleys drowning in sticky black mud, where rainwater mixed with clotted blood and motor oil. The people here were like hungry ghosts with pale faces and sunken eyes, looking at me from the dark alleys like hyenas watching fat prey that had lost its way.
Step. A sound of swift friction cut through the air. Instinctively, I raised my right hand. Block. I caught the jagged stone aimed at the back of my head a mere inch before it touched me. I looked calmly toward the dark corner it came from, and the shadows instantly retreated in fear. I tossed the stone into the mud.
(Vanitas... what are you planning here? Why do you come to this swamp?)
I walked for a few minutes, tracking the address I had extracted from my intelligence, before stopping in front of a dilapidated building made of rusty metal sheets. A smashed neon sign blinked with intermittent light: "Scrap Shop". I pushed the metal door, its creak as annoying as a cat's scream.
The smell inside was a mix of mold and iron. There were several men, their bodies tattooed with battle scars, sitting around a table playing cards. The moment I entered, they all stood up as one body, their hands moving toward their hidden weapons. I looked at them with the glacial "Exemplar" gaze and released my knight's aura, a slight energetic pressure that made the air heavy in the room.
"Do not try," I said in a low voice, carrying no threat, but stating an absolute fact. "You will die the first second you pull anything out."
They froze in their places. Their glares shifted from hostility to terror as they realized who I was and what the silver sword on my waist represented.
"Where is he?" I asked coldly.
One of them swallowed hard and pointed a trembling hand toward a dark corridor. "In the back."
Step. Two steps. The corridor was damp, and at the end of it stood a thick wooden door. I wondered what I would see behind this door. Shady deals? Betrayal of the family? Yes, that was expected. But it is my duty as an older brother to protect him, even from his enemies here.
I reached the door and turned the handle, but it was stuck. Something was propping it from the inside. I pushed the door forcefully with my shoulder. Crack. The sound of bones or cartilage shattering under the weight of the door echoed as the crack finally opened. I looked down to see what was obstructing it: a corpse. It was a naked girl, her eyes bulging in frozen terror, her neck opened with a smile of blood.
My heart stopped beating. I slowly raised my gaze toward the inside of the room. I wish I hadn't come. I wish I had died before seeing this.
My little brother. The perfect boy. He was standing in the middle of the room, completely naked. He was not fighting. He was erect—a complete physical arousal, distorted, and disgusting. And beneath him, in every corner of the room, there were corpses. Four women. Naked. Dead in the most gruesome ways a human mind could comprehend. Torn flesh, entrails displayed like demented paintings, and a coat of blood covering the walls and the floor.
Vanitas stood above this slaughterhouse, dripping with blood. He was smiling—a wide, sick, and relaxed smile. Blood stained his chin and his teeth. His beautiful blond hair, which my mother used to brush, had turned into sticky red locks glued to his forehead by the blood. His eyes, those eyes I had always defended, were not crazy; they were enjoying it. They overflowed with a deep, dark ecstasy as he looked at the scattered pieces beneath him.
The air evaporated from my lungs. My mind, programmed for tactics and logic, stopped working. Complete paralysis struck my limbs. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't blink, and my throat closed as if a steel hand was squeezing it. The smell of iron, musk, and death invaded my sinuses until I almost threw up my guts.
Vanitas noticed the open door. He turned to me and looked directly into my eyes, but he didn't see me. His pupil was so dilated it swallowed the iris.
"Who are you?" he said in a hoarse voice, carrying the annoyance of someone whose pleasure was interrupted. "I said no one enters!"
Then he raised his voice, screaming toward the corridor behind me, blood spittle flying from his mouth: "Didn't I tell you no one enters?!!"
One of the tattooed men from behind me hurried over. The man looked into the room, and even he—a criminal living at the bottom of the city—paled. His lower lip trembled with obvious disgust at the sight.
"But sir..." the man stuttered, involuntarily stepping backward, "he is..."
I reached out my hand slowly, a hand that was trembling like a dying old man, and touched the man's shoulder. The words came out of my throat dry, dead, not resembling my voice:
"I... will go."
I turned around with pure mechanics, a body without a soul. A step outside. Another step. I didn't look back. I didn't draw my sword. I didn't utter his name.
I walked out of the dilapidated chemical shop. The rain hit my face again, washing the drops of cold sweat from my forehead. I looked down. The rain beat against my silver military boots—the boots that were stained by the blood of the innocents crushed at the door.
(Oh Otos... you who swore to protect your brother...)
I closed my eyes, and the image of the blood-stained smile was carved into my cerebral cortex forever.
(When you swore to your mother...)
(Did you ever think... that you could protect your brother from himself?)