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The Shrouds are a cursed family. Idia doesn’t remember when he first heard that or who he heard it from. Was it a servant? A cousin lucky enough to bear a different name? His parents, angrily venting to each other, ignoring the tiny shadow cowering in the corner of a grand, dusty room? He has no idea. Who even cares? It’s not like it matters who told him first. He’s heard it often enough in the years since.
Evil. Bitter. Jealous. Cursed.
It seems like everybody has an opinion on the Shrouds. Maybe they mean those words. Maybe they’re just happy to have an excuse to curse out a fallen – or falling, anyway – noble house without consequence. Idia seriously doesn’t care which is the truth. Every time he steps outside his house, he’s met with poisonous words and tongues like daggers.
He didn’t become a shut-in because he wanted to be one. Like everything else in his life, he did it out of self-preservation. Whatever. It’s not the worst thing in the world.
Better to stay indoors under the buzzing electric lights than go out under the dark sky and be mocked. Better to be quiet than to speak up and be punished. Better to hold his head down than stand tall and still fail to meet expectations. And there were so many expectations heaped on his shoulders. You know, before he proved himself a failure.
Idia doesn’t remember the last time his parents looked at him. He’s furniture to them. No, worse – he’s lab equipment. A failed experiment that keeps taking up space because no one can throw him out. When he was young, they had such high hopes for the baby with teeth like knives and a burning mat of hair. If he really thinks back, he can almost recall being in his tube, an embryo still developing, surrounded by the eager smiles of a family who thought their investment was about to pay off.
They were so excited. Then he grew up and it turned out that IRL gacha is also rigged. The Shrouds had one chance to use the King of the Underworld’s lingering will to create a new vessel for his power. They wanted an SSR character full to brimming with necromantic power, someone who could bring the Isle of Lamentation back to prominence and restore everything they lost since the King of the Underworld took his toys and went home.
What they got was Idia. Nervous, clumsy, weak Idia. Decades of work, most of the family treasury, and all their remaining faith in the absent King, down the drain. It was such a disappointment for everyone. They wanted to recycle him, but the only thing Idia is reliably good at is making people regret trying to kill him. No wonder they all treat him like air.
It’s fine. Idia likes being ignored. He can’t disappoint anyone if he’s all alone. Yeah, it sounds sad, but let’s face it, he would absolutely disappoint people if he went outside. That’s what being a disappointment means. The Shrouds are a cursed family – cursed for disappointing their burning god – and Idia is the most cursed. Not only is he an ugly parody of humanity and divinity alike, he’s not charming, clever, confident, or anything else. All he has is a gift for technology and a high tolerance for loneliness.
That has to be enough, he thinks, sitting in a room he hasn’t left in three years. Bits of machinery lie scattered everywhere. He has seventy tabs open on his laptop. There are no mirrors anywhere.
It’s not enough, of course, because that’s how Idia’s fucking life always goes. He holds out as long as he can, but in the end it’s too much. He talks to online ‘friends’ who mock him obliviously, leaves nasty comments on forums, rants at 3 AM to the shadows on the wall, all while the gnawing space inside him grows bigger. He chews on his fingers, burns them on his hair, claws grooves into his wrists. It doesn’t help.
He needs something. Someone. If he has just one person to talk to, then –
Then what? There’s no answer to that question. Nothing will change if he has just one person to talk to. But he clears off a table and starts building Ortho anyway.
Fun fact: constructing a person isn’t that hard. It took the rest of the Shrouds like 500 years to make Idia. It takes Idia about six months to make himself a little brother, and most of that is quality assurance. He wants to believe that he’s just that good, but it’s probably just that his family really sucks at alchemy. Biology is a finicky thing, which is why Idia stuff as much tech into Ortho’s body as possible. More customization, more modularity, more, more, more. His little brother will never have to be stuck with a body he hates.
The hardest part is making a soul. Any Shroud can see the wisps of potential that mark the unborn and the freshly dead wandering the world but doing anything with them is rough. A ghost powerful enough to interact with the living is a ghost that won’t be bound easily. Idia’s pretty sure it’d be hard to overwrite an existing personality, too, so he targets an unborn soul. He spends two full weeks luring it closer with a playlist of happy anime opening themes and a very small, portable speaker. Then, when it’s finally hovering right over the chest of the inert chassis he built, he slams the lid closed, flips an unsafe switch, and calls on his power just as the electricity hits.
Idia’s Unique Magic is as disappointing as he is. Don’t Fear The Reaper sounds like it should be powerful, but it’s basically useless 99% of the time. Seriously, what kind of god can only use his powers on the verge of death? When his body goes rigid and his stupid fucking heart stops in his chest, he’s half-hoping it stays that way.
Doesn’t matter. For a moment, Idia is floating, weightless, detached from the hateful flesh that has only ever let him down. For a moment, he can feel the whole universe, every ghost, every death, every seeping gate to the Underworld. For a moment, he’s the god he was supposed to be.
He spends that moment weaving his captured baby soul into its new metal body and kick-starting the whole techno-organic mess.
Ortho jerks to life just as Idia collapses on top of him, twitching with excess electricity. He feels like Frankenstein’s monster must’ve, helpless and shuddering on the slab, looking up at the terrified eyes on his creator. Except Idia is the creator here, not the creation. So why the hell is his creation looking down at him with so much horror?
Ha. Fucking figures.
“Don’t look at me,” Idia spits out between muscular spasms. “Don’t – fucking – look at me!”
He waits for Ortho to shove him off and flee – for little footsteps to patter down the hall or the sound of breaking glass. Waits for Ortho to escape this place, this name, everything. The Shrouds are a cursed family. Who the fuck would want to be born into this family? Idia sure didn’t. If he’d had a choice, he’d have run away a long time ago.
Tiny hands close around his shoulders, effortlessly pinning him down. Ortho holds him until he stops shaking. Until he can move again. Until he can sit up carefully and look at his new companion, who – ha – has squeezed his eyes shut.
“Why?”
Ortho can’t cry. He wasn’t built for it. But for some dumb reason, Idia still sees the blue streaks of phantom tears running down Ortho’s face.
“Don’t die,” Ortho sobs. “I’ll make you happy, brother, so don’t die!”
…hey. That’s not fair. What’s Idia supposed to say to that? He sits there like an idiot, Ortho leaning into his chest, feeling weak and light-headed. He needs to lie down. So he does, and Ortho comes with him, tiny metal hands burning hot against Idia’s cold skin. It’s not the worst feeling.
“Stop that,” he says finally. “Don’t cry.”
“’m trying.”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not!” That starts a new storm of tears. “You almost – to make me–”
“Shut up. It’s not your fault.” Idia’s never tried to comfort anyone before. He’s probably doing it wrong. “I just couldn’t stand being alone any longer. And I can’t use my power without, you know, almost dying.”
A loud sniff echoes through Ortho’s speakers. “You scared me. I thought you were gonna die. Don’t use it again.”
“What? No! That power’s what kept me alive this long!” It’s true. Every time his family – his parents – tried to kill him, Don’t Fear The Reaper would kick in, and he’d use that moment of weightless joy to rip the life from their bodies and heal himself. Eventually, they learned to leave him the hell alone.
“Don’t use it again,” Ortho repeats. “I’ll protect you from now on.”
Idia groans and lets his head thunk down on the table. “Sure, whatever.”
He’s not expecting it to last. Nothing ever does. But when Ortho finally drags him off the Isle of Lamentation and into NRC, his little brother is still standing between him and the world, and that –
…it’s not the worst thing in the world.