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From one to another.
Not quite two hearts beating as one.
But a certain type of synchronisation
That only they could understand
Like two actors on a stage.
Silver light through a pair of antique windows drew outlines on the bodies inside, a dramatic show for the finale of another performance. A fist raised up to the sky, silhouetted in moonlight, catching the golden bracer matching eyes on fire. The other hand held the other body, posed like a statue with a face frozen in fear, white shirt stained with red but glazed by moonlight. The desperate painting of the lower man, throwing puffs of condensation up to the stilled silence of the man in the moonlight. Arched and framed by the ornate antique windows, the blue and white light mixed by the black, and with it the eyes in the middle looking down, the three colours began to meld together. Layers of pink, blue and gold, gilded with moonlight. All three colours illuminated the face of the fallen victim, who was down to their last breath, being drawn into the attackers sea of stars.
“Y-y-y-you! The devil….incarna---!”
The devil indeed, with one swift move silenced the white light on the floor and took a breath. The punch broke through the body, and was discarded on the floor to empty itself out in the devil’s shadow. Adrenaline now running out and face now once more forgotten by the world, the build of panic at who may appear through the door next. Wide pink eyes turned to the endless night sky behind him, trying to count every star in the sky, pleading for the warmth and night to wrap him away. To drown out the puffs and whimpers to turn this crime scene back to silence. It was a calming technique to erase this small mistake; a distraction to slip back into the darkness. A figment only in the back of his underling’s minds, never in their eyes.
“Doppio..We must leave…!”
Pink eyes becoming less lucid and softer, with the slowing of breathing, eventually beginning to bring the world to a much more still state. Adrenaline leaving with the drops of the devil’s sweat giving small shimmers to the dried blood. With trying to control the heavy breaths, the devil was waiting to feel his partner to come. The pink haired force turned away from the window and moonlight, puffs of his breath being the last sound as he descended into silence, It was the only sound that anything was alive in the building..The devil’s rhythm with his heart had teadied into one, and began searching for his associate to finally free him from the stress. All he wanted was to still the rough waters of the world for his trusted partner...yet…
“Diavolo! You truly are a diavolo!”
Behind him...the defeated Capo with face drenched blood and bone was able to struggle to his knees. Disturbing his silence with his shout; disturbing his darkness with the bright colours of his stand’s aura; disturbing his breathing rhythm. The devil waited, and posed with his finger pointing, waiting for the Capo to move, waiting to see the colour of his spirit at full desperation, waiting to see what could possibly drive someone who harmed a small kid in a purple jumper. Under the moonlight, Diavolo took a step forward into the circle of the moon and endless stars, watching Capo's last stand turn his skin into naught but moonlight itself.
“Within my palms, my wrath shall be engraved upon your very soul.”
Trailing up devil’s moon-touched thicker gloves, red and white lattices crossed over the rest of his arms. Next to his head, a second, screaming head of the devil’s spirit asked the Capo for his last rites. The Capo drew his arm back to throw one final, last punch, from his knees however was left frozen in space and time. With pure red enveloping the small world that the man had invaded, time slipped by once more, fate adjusted once more and the remaining second began to rebuild themselves a different world. With a thundering sound, and a wet splatter up a wall, the devil corrected the result, cleanly bisecting the traitor. His arms were folded as the white gloves and lattice still held its striking pose out with a flat palm. The devil’s words followed as the two halves hit the floor.
“This stilled world will finally spin once again,”
The unfortunate Capo could not comprehend what had separated his body cleanly in two. It was as if the hand just sliced through time itself. The meters between them were closed in an instant and his other halves were separated in the same window. Instead of seeing his life flash before his eyes, only vague questions of the devil’s dance in the moonlight followed. By the time his upper half had realised that he was staring at his own legs, the Capo could feel the world spinning once again with darkness crawling over his vision and the coldness began to take over. Diavolo held a hand over his face and waited before he could sense not a single trace of spirit left. So he too, could once more vanish into the void as a realm of myth and fear, left silence to fall. On the floor, the Capo had tried to reach for the light and grasp the moon above before he returned to the universe.
“...the silence…”
Searching his mind as he watched the blood obscure his reflection on the mirror above the mantle of the Capo’s house, Diavolo flicked his hand away, spraying more of the Capo’s remnants about and caught his breath. Behind him, the red and white lattice patterned arms draped around his neck lazily, the extension of his own spirit calmed him from it’s exertion. Yet it’s face was angry; still reminiscent of the last thing the leader saw, as if it had waited so long to fulfill its duty that this exteration of energy was a release. Unnerved by the impending silence, the attacker hid away the arms around him, and asked to noone in particular.
“...Doppio…”
This entire family - no - the entire universe was being molded in his hands, Diavolo would move time itself to ensure their partner had the results he wanted. Diavolo’s face had to be kept a secret, it was the only way his spirit could hold the strings of fate and consequence together. This dichotomy, the synchronisation of their breaths, the way they slipped between ages and freckles was a power beyond a single soul’s spirit. With that, however had meant that his partner had become a reason for his existence. Without one, Diavolo would be held away in his world of silence and darkness, only through a phone and screen before fading completely out. Without the other, even with his spirit’s power to warp results in his way, he could not see the future as clearly, could not be the devil in people’s hearts/ Dearest Doppio who would hold his face kept him as nothing but an unknown mirage to the outside. Between this, the devil kept an iron grip around his the hearts and minds of his squads, channeled through the same breath and strength as Doppio. This rhythm was as regular to the sunrise and would last until the very end of the world.
No matter how many times Diavolo would grant Doppio his power though, there were times when the devil had to speak forwardly to who had betrayed their deal. These fateful encounters were kept away from Doppio, away from the blood ending, away from the attacks of the traitors. These little accidents where he would let go of his honor just for his parter. Take things into his own hand and show his full self. Each of these moments where their teamwork let into the devil going out his dues,were precious moments to Diavolo. These moments were his comfort, and his trust, the anchor point for his world. His anchor point that the coin would always fall on their cool. To look back and understand what went wrong and readjust their Passione family as such.
“Doppio...Come..We must leave…”
Hearing the knock on the front grand doors, Diavaolo clicked it open with a white gloved hand, red andwhite lattice separating from his actual arm. Between the crack of the door a sit opened, a pink jumper that had some slight stains of blood, not of their own. The Devil clutched it and dove into the distant endless night outside. Contorting his body into the jumper as he passed through the boundary of the door, vanishing into the darkness inside once more. Back into the dream that he wondered if he’d ever woke up from. For the leader of the Passione, there had been thousands of interactions, edits, consequences over the years to lead him to this point. Yet none of that had mattered, the result, the end result of him sitting atop his throne, pulling both the common person and politician's hearts to his own song. Black strings spoke the devil’s tongue without his face being known to nobody but the wind and the few stars that would witness these fateful nights. Said twinkling starry sky guided his partner through the outside streets and into the night. The lights would pass over his partner’s hands that shared the same bloodstain, but nobody out at night could see the same pair of hands. Everytime the other side needed to catch a breath or rest, everytime the paranoia of the devil seeped through the partners’ eyes, there’d be a break. Every slight desynchronisation, was a panic and worry. Every insect narrowly avoided on the floor, ever odd gaze of a night water averted.
“Can you feel my breath, Doppio? Listen to the gentle rhythm of it. Keep that rhythm..and follow the bright light illuminating on your face, to away from here, and do not let it go.”
Asleep, but still awake, Diavolo watched his partner run through the night streets before he slept fully. Lost in the memories of all the times when he was part of the young man who ran through the same streets as but a singular lost soul. The past memories are still there, one and the same with the breath that is still there that kept their hearts working in unison. Dearest Doppio, keeping his existing nothing more than a rumour in the wind. Where his directions and orders would pass through them, followed to the letter. Where his red and white latticed arms would hold him tight, and they’d solve their issues together in unison. Be it removing an annoying taxi driver or rival thug desperate for the same drug trade that they continued to fund. Be it dealing with crazed doctors who had to repair the wounds with inelegant strokes on Doppio’s body from injuries. The red and white lattice of Diavolo’s spirit was a blanket around Doppio and the small pink third eye granted to him in times of need was crown of their strength of their duality. The exhilaration between the two when they watched the blood of an opponent fall, the climax where the two’s breath was in unison and a traitor would be the devil. Nothing made their hearts ache, and minds stay sharp as those memories they clutched.
“No need to care about that anymore, Doppio. Keep moving. Your breath is mine, I will keep you going...”
These memories were always being updated, changed, corrected. Much how the Devil changed the course time to get the result his favour, so too, was the memories of the past at his whim. The time before had to be buried, the identity, the name, the mother in stitches had to be blacked out. The result, no matter what would be these two souls as one running through the streets of Italy. This was how their world should be, in silence and synchronised, dancing to their whims, curled around their hand. In the Doppio’s eyes shone like the stars and was pwoered by Diavolo’s hands that could grasp the stars themselves.
Oh how it could’ve been so long ago, if they could have achieved results earlier, fixed their strings in place and plucked at the harp that would scare off angels. Their meeting was too far late in Diavolo’s life, yet as Doppio followed the moon, that face was little more than talking to the wind. The journey had taught them the extent of their abilities but that was itl, the results were crafted in unison to establish the Passione and sprawl over Italy. What may have happened before hadn’t mattered. What was any further history to them, when Diavolo could play the strings of fate like a harp had destroyed even history itself. When Doppio could slip between crowds, bodies and groups be the devil’s almost-omnipotent eyes? Between these two powers, they had sung a different kind of song through the rest of the Passione. So that even the few trickles of people who knew of their past were little more than vague rumours, perhaps pulled from a monster folklore tale. After all, creating this new world for each other meant rewriting the past, present and future, all for each other.
In the back of an inconspicuous taxi, the body caught it’s breath. Panting and sweating still from the exercise. The exhilaration of the punishment and execution now being worn down to an ache and silence. Hearing a phone ring, Doppio took out the small atlas and held it up to bury his face, and his head into the devil’s voice.
“...You and I breath as one,”
-----
Once again, in time and fate had to be corrected once more.
The silence that fell after the blood hit the floor
A traitor stood and shouted at the devil’s red light engulfing him, his own colours colliding against the red. Moonlight illuminated his face, and carved out his last breath before
Once more he let his honour slip for the sake of painting his specialty crafted universe. Another flash, another snap, and another alignment of fate. The traitor placed their fingers in the now formed hole in their body, silence once more fell in the world of Diavolo. Picking u[ the jumper, perfectly pristine and immune from the blood splatter, he held it up with pride. Another new universe created for you, another status quo adjusted so the reason for his existence could go on once more. Dawning the sweater and vanishing into the streets of italy, removed from time once more, fading into nothing but an unknown mirage. From their fateful encounter and until the end of the world, Diavolo would let his honour slip for the other half who shared the same breath. Eventually they would conquer the planet and fate itself
...In their same breath.