There was nothing but a void.
No floor beneath his feet, no air caressing his skin, no weight dragging at his body.
Nero hovered in that black hoodie and those stupid white sneakers he never tied, the laces floating around like they had better plans or better places to be.
He didn't like it, that weird, uncomfortable feeling like they'd plucked him from the ground he just died on, yanked him somewhere without even bothering to undress him. At least they hadn't left him naked, which was a stupid detail to be stuck on right now but his mind kept latching onto it.
Wherethe hell was this?
He forced his eyes open slowly like the act itself took more energy than he'd consented to. Something stood before him, and it was tall, making everything else feel small and insignificant.
A hood concealed its head, making a blank void where features should have been, two eyes blazing through the darkness like smoke trapped inside glass. Floating above its head was a crown halo, twisting black and red like a burning flame and it was slowly spinning like the earth's orbit.
"Open your eyes fully, human."
The voice was utterly flat and bored sounding, but it clamped down on Nero with pressure like a heavy weight on his chest. Nero blinked hard, struggling to focus on edges that wouldn't settle, then his hand lifted, fingers trembling, and he stared at it as if it would offer some explanation.
"I… is this hell…?" Nero asked. "I admit I was kinda bad in school but…"
The figure didn't flinch. "No. You are in the presence of a god."
That settled in the silence, and Nero didn't know how to react. His mouth worked, opened, closed, opened again as if his body had forgotten the mechanics of speech.
"I… I…"
His thoughts tangled over themselves, words failing to fall into place.
'What is going on?! Didn't I…fall?'
"I have claimed your very being," the figure stated flatly, as if reading from a script. "But there are those who wish to take what is theirs."
Nero ran a hand through his hair, fingers catching on the shorter strands around his temples, that choppy undercut he kept because it was easier to style. His head was swimming, full of a million meaningless details.
"What are you talking about? Just say it straight, creature."
There was a beat of silence like the figure was considering if Nero was worth the effort. "Very well. I and four hundred of my kin have taken the bodies of the dead of those who died in their world. We choose who we favor. Through us, you and others will wield what your kind calls forbidden magic. I have chosen you, Nero."
Chosen. That word latched onto his thoughts and sank in them unpleasantly. It didn't fit. Not after what happened with that psycho ex girlfriend of his, he damn sure didn't feel CHOSEN then.
"So I'm not the only one," Nero muttered, more to himself than to the figure, then tilted his head up again. "Why me?"
"The world you will act within is called Majestil," the figure continued, ignoring his question, or perhaps unable to understand it. "Within it lies the Holy Land. A domain governed by knights who serve a god of light. They offer miracles: Resurrection, healing from all diseases and curses, and eternal youth without end. It must be erased."
Nero blinked. That sounded… useful. A bit too useful, if he was honest. Something people would fight over, and the people who needed this Holy Land would sacrifice stuff for.
"And you want me to destroy that," he said, disbelief plain in his voice.
"Yes. As my vessel, you will do so. In return, you will sit among gods. Power without limit, authority none can challenge, and true domination."
That word again…
…Domination.
His mind reeled, pulling him back to the room, to Yulie's voice, to her reaching out as if it would solve everything. To Alandale's face as he got punched, to the sound of glass shattering as they tumbled through the window, the images flickered all jumbled and shitty.
'What a pain.'
"Domination… huh?" Nero said, but with more of a comment than a question.
The figure watched him, those red eyes like twin coals as if assessing his reactions.
"Destroy the Holy Land, and you will have it."
Nero's jaw tightened up pretty hard, his stare dropping to his hands that were now steady, and that bothered him even more than the trembling had.
"Will I…be able to dominate fate…? Finally…?"
The question escaped before he could stop it. He hated the way it sounded, hated that it was a question he was even asking. It sounded way too edgy out of his mouth, but sounded normal in his head.
The figure tilted its head slightly. "Fate is a chain that wraps itself around those who accept its weight. Domination belongs to those who tear at it until it breaks or until their hands bleed trying."
It told him everything and nothing at once. Nero clicked his tongue under his breath, annoyed at himself.
'Huh? The hell does that mean? Does he expect me to figure out something that cryptic? I'm not some riddle or metaphor guru. Whatever.'
"But for now," the figure said, the boredom replaced by something colder, "you must leave this place. Purgatory, a realm that is mine, a place that I have created. It holds what me and my family have taken, which is you and the others who have died in their world. The realm before your souls read their final destination. Death himself seeks to reclaim it, as he is the one who is supposed to shepherd your souls to your eternal location."
Nero squinted. "Death? Isn't that normal?"
'But he said 'himself', like Death was a man or something. Is that what he could've meant?'
"A being your kind would call a fable," the figure responded. "He governs the end of all life. When a soul leaves its body, it belongs to him. We have taken what should have gone to him. Which is all the ones on the verge of true death, like you, that we have plucked from his grasp. Purgatory is a place that exists because of that, and it will not hold forever. When you awaken, you and the others will be hunted, and you will fight your way free or be consumed. You must escape Purgatory, and arrive in the new world."
That confirmed it then, Nero was physically dead, but not truly dead as in the sense of his soul having the chance to live inside his body again, but in another world.
Nero let out a breath that felt like nothing.
"Then hurry up! I'll destroy the Holy Land!"
He didn't know if he even meant it, It just came out. But if it meant getting to ultimate power faster, then screw it all; he'll stop whoever and whatever got in his way.
The mysterious figure said, "Instantly accepting this mission, for the sake of power and domination. Are you truly that devoted?"
"No mercy…" Nero finished.
'Domination….'
'Power…'
'I think I'm in shock…or I think I'm scared or something. Does this happen to everyone after they die? Who even is this big bastard?! I'd have to really do it right? Or maybe is this shit all a dream? Me walking in Yulie cheating on me, me actually bashing that guy's head into the wall, and him tackling me and Yulie while I was distracted. Yeah…it felt real, way too damn real. Is this really real?! If so…I don't know if I can accept it all too quickly, I still think this is some vivid dream or something, maybe I blacked out when I saw Yulie cheating. Maybe I'll wake up back in my bed, this is all just some nightmare. But what if this really is real? I accepted something so fast? Was Yulie right? Can I really not let go of my nature? No, she was wrong! She cheated and tried to manipulate and gaslight me!'
The figure regarded him for a long moment, then raised a finger and pointed directly at him.
"Then hear me."
The air around Nero warped, or maybe it didn't as his perception simply broke. Suddenly and violently, something slammed into his chest, a blade made of black metal and wreathed in red flame.
SHUNK!
Nero gasped, his body jerking, a scream tearing from his throat, but no blood spilled which was surprising, just pain unlike anything he'd ever known.
Another blade followed.
Then another.
"I bind your soul to mine," the figure intoned, his voice unwavering and never splitting from its authoritative sound. "Through ruin, you will grow. Through destruction, you will ascend. Take what stands before you. Break what resists you, and let nothing remain beyond your reach."
SHUNK!
SHUNK!
SHUNK!
More blades drove into Nero, one after another, piercing his arms, his chest, even his back, each strike a surprise and a violation at the same time.
Nero cried out, the sound of his voice lost in the emptiness of the void.
"I claim you as my vessel," the figure's voice rose, making the words resonate with greater power or authority, whichever one it was, but both were present.
"I am your patron. You will rise through devastation. Claim your authority, and claim your domination."
The final blade struck, and time stopped. Then Nero's body seemed to disintegrate with a faint pop, crumbling into black dust that scattered into nothing, leaving the void empty, as if he'd never been there.
'This can't be real…!'
….
….
….
Nero's eyes flew open so fast that the world didn't come together for a moment; there was a second's delay, his mind lagging behind the rest of his body, and the first thing he registered was not where he was but the constant motion under him.
The floor under him rolled like something alive under his hands, carrying him regardless of whether he wanted it to or not.
He looked around and almost puked; he seemed to be inside of something's stomach?!
He pushed himself up on instinct, his palm touching the intestine floor, saying, "What the hell…?" His voice came out cracked, but he didn't stay silent for long.
But then other voices joined in:
"Where are we?!" screamed a voice, fracturing in the middle.
"No... No! I was just with my daughter! Where is she?!" roared another voice that was louder, tripping over themselves as the words spilled from them.
Nero exhaled through his nose, looking at everyone panicking.
Dead. Yeah, that felt more right than anything so far.
'These people are just like me, like that mysterious god man said!'
There were about a hundred people with him, the ground rolled again, a bit harder this time and bodies staggered around him. Shoulders banged into shoulders, hands grabbed anything nearby to keep them upright, some people tumbled with a curse that spilled from them as they hit the strange, yielding ground.
Nero caught himself with a knee, digging his fingers into that nasty substance and he didn't like how it reacted, it had that faint resistance and that sense of something hosting it that was not inanimate.
"...we're inside something." He mumbled the words, mostly to himself before pushing up to his feet again before he could really take it in.
And there was light ahead, a wide opening ahead of him framed by something that curves in a half circle, flexing a little bit and clearly not made of stone, wood, or anything remotely solid.
It was a mouth, and the realization hit him, so Nero moved to it. Mix the rumbling outside, a floor made of intestines and stomach walls; Nero really started to believe he was inside a monster.
He threw himself forward into the shifting crowd, his shoulder knocking into someone who staggered out of his way. His hands shoved anything out of his path, driving forward into the opening and ignoring the protests that followed him like angry gnats.
Others were coming too, pushed by the same raw need to get out, to see and to understand what exactly was going on. They had all heard a glimpse of things from their patrons like Nero did, but the reactions was reasonable as the sounds outside sounded like battle and carnage.
By the time he reached the edge of it, his breath was coming faster, from the sheer onslaught of what was happening. He braced his hands against the curve of the large beast-like mouth, leaning forward to look.
Everything past the edge sucked his focus in. The sky was a flat gray nothingness devoid of clouds, devoid of anything that felt familiar, and yet it was completely packed. Shapes too large to comprehend at a glance moved across it, blocking out pieces of that gray sky as they did so. Each shape carried a weight, a powerful presence that filled the air despite the distance.
These were Titans.
Some looked like walking fortresses given life; bodies broad, brutal, limbs oddly mismatched in size but still moving with purpose. Others were taller, with something closer to divinity in their proportions, faces bearing the semblance of features, armor grafted to their forms as if they had grown it.
One strode across the expanse on four massive, talon tipped legs, its upper body in the shape of a warrior wearing a helm that appeared fused directly to its skull, long tendrils trailing from its back like banners.
Another towered higher still, a being that looked like carved stone brought to life, cracks running across it that glowed with an inner light.
And there were others, bodies splitting, and reforming as if they could not settle on one form.
Because they were not alone, other beings were slicing between the giants, up and down, from side to side were other figures with purpose, black tattered wings spread wide, their forms dark and drinking in the light of the gray sky. They moved as if they were shadows or demons, thrashing and striking through the Titans.
Their weapons had the same quality, dark grey and black like volcano ash, and each weapon carried death magic in the form of black shadows. These beings were called the Caretakers, manifestations of Death himself, and they had cracked halos over their heads that were misshapen.
They moved everywhere at once, diving, climbing, striking; and when their weapons tore through a Titan's body, something followed behind it, a dark shadowy cloud spreading through its flesh, making the giants falter mid-step.
One Titan collapsed as a winged figure drove its weapon into its neck, its enormous arms falling uselessly. Another's leg was severed with a soundless strike, its body toppling onto the ground below and cracking it. And from a figure in the sky, something unseen reached out and a clutch of small creatures clinging to a Titan's hide fell, lifeless before they even hit the ground.
Nero's eyes raced from one moment to the next, trying to make sense of any of it, until he noticed something else.
People were falling, tumbling from the sides of some of the farther Titans like falling rocks.
'You've got to be kidding…we're all inside some crazy monsters?!'
Titans carrying people, protecting them and storing them, like this one.
And because of that, it made Nero want to actually figure out what exactly he and the dozens upon dozens of others inside this beast with him were being carried in.
The nasty floor beneath him rolled again, and he actually looked. The curve of the opening was a vast beak, edged with tooth-like projections. Beyond that, the body of whatever he was standing in stretched back, a jumble of shapes that somehow fit together. Four impossibly powerful legs supported it, and feathers covered parts of its body, others transitioning into dense plating, armor grown directly from its form. Its upper body held a massive and powerful humanoid figure, and bloody white wings tucked back.
It was a Griffon-like Titan. It was massive and majestic, and utterly unaware of anything but the fight and its mission to guide all the "dead" out of Purgatory. But Nero was also heavily focused on those things flying around with black wings and fighting these Titans, hoping and praying none of them actually flew in to get them.
But on top of that, Nero still was confused on the lines of authenticity, he still couldn't figure out if his was truly real or fake, or just a super vivid dream. He had all of his senses, he could feel everything as well, but this was all over the place, large beings and winged beings clashing all over the place like he was in an anime.
A voice sounded off into Nero's head, the same voice of the mysterious entity, his patron whom he still knew nothing about. "Those are the Caretakers. All of them are fragments of Death's will. Each one carries a different aspect of the end of life."
Nero glanced back at the battle, seeing certain coldness and a certain efficiency in the Caretaker's faces.
"There are hundreds of them," the voice continued. "More than you can count."
Nero exhaled slowly, still locked on the chaos outside. "And those?" he mumbled while looking at the Titans.
"These are our Titans you and many others dwell in. Their purpose is to hold the line and guide you out of purgatory."
Purgatory. Nero almost laughed at that word. He'd heard of it, of course. The stories, the beliefs, that intermediary space people argued about when they had nothing else to do, the place between living and what came after, much like a waiting room.
He just hadn't pictured this: A battlefield; Titans carrying people like cargo while Death's fragments tore through the sky.
"...yeah, that checks out," he muttered, as if the explanation somehow improved things.
He rubbed the back of his neck. "But hey! Y-you! What's my power then since you said I had some forbidden magic?!"
The voice didn't hesitate. "You'll figure it out."
Nero's mouth quirked, and he thought, 'Of course that was his answer. Mysterious bastard.'
He looked back at the sky again, at one of the Titans crumbling under a blow. Then, a thought popped into his head. If these things could do all this, command Titans, fight Death…
Then why weren't they here themselves?
Why send something else to fight for them and protect the people they claimed to have taken from their worlds like him?
He let the thought rest for a moment, then dismissed it. Didn't matter now, and didn't change anything for him.
He pushed himself away from the opening, turning back toward the crowd behind him. The noise hit him again—the panic, the confusion, and the loud conversations. Some of them had actually started doing things, little sparks of light flickered around a few hands, and some people were actually walking around or sitting down talking to their patrons in their heads just like Nero was doing a few seconds ago.
His eyes swept across them, the chaos, and the desperation, and then his eyes landed on one figure standing clear even in the mess.
Yulie.
Her eyes were wide and scanning everything like she expected someone to explain it to her, just like she used to when things got complicated. And next to her, Alandale. Of course he was there. Nero stared at them for a moment longer than he should have, and something twisted in his chest that he didn't bother focusing on because he already knew what was brewing up in his chest: rage.
His hand tightened at his side, then, without really thinking about it, he decided he was gonna go over to them.