Chapter Text
"THE HEART GO FOR THE HEART!" Even from a distance her voice books in Lucio's ears, covering up the mantra in his head made up of, 'Do this and you can kill her's repeated over and over.
As he readys to strike the bug person he receives a hard shove to his side sending him to the ground as his injuries bleed even more, "FUCKING WASTE I'LL SHOW YOU HO-" His mantra is interrupted by her sudden intervention and as his wounds bleed profusely he hears yelling and then a sudden silence.
He feels something wet fall on his face and when he tries to look at the source his eyes grow heavy and blood loss catches up to him.
His eyes open feeling a pressure around his chest, arms, and legs, and hearing voices. Looking up at the voices he sees the members of Limbus company he has been tasked to fight, except the bug person is missing. The people seem to notice him as the tall woman kneels down, "Heya kiddo~! How you feelin?"
Lucio squints at the woman confused, 'why is the enemy of all people asking if I am ok?' He seemed to take too long to respond so the woman looks towards the red gaze who is holding a roll of bandages. He looks down at her and says, "Don't worry he will be fine, if he somehow gets worse we can use a K corp ampule."
'They would use one of their ampules on me? If so why not use one already?' Lucio wonders staring at them.
Luckily the question is asked for him, "Eh if we're supposed to keep this sod alive why don't we already give 'em the healing thing."
"It'd be a waste, he's not that injured." Even with his question answered he now had another one, 'Why do they want me alive?'
As he wonders this his brain seems to catch up to him and he sits up a bit straighter catching the attention of the red gaze but no one else. Looking around Lucio is confused by his surroundings seeing completely destroyed walls floors everything. But behind all that destruction he can recognize the room, he can still smell the scent of alcohol and cigar smoke behind the stench of blood.
"Oh hey seems like you're more awake! How are ya?" The woman asks again and with his more focused mind Lucio acts reaching for his sword, but he grabs air instead. Feeling around he realizes his sword isn't on him.
Hearing a noise Lucio looks up and sees the man who asked about the ampules holding his swords, "Ya didn't think we'd just let you keep your sword huh? We're not completely off our rockers." He smiles clearly proud of himself.
'I could try to rush to my swords and take them but...' taking one glace at the red gaze he sees that he is being intently watched, 'Without master here the gaze is going to go for me... I suppose I should just comply then.'
Looking at them again he finally answers the woman, "I am fine."
The man barks a laugh, "Yeah and I'm blue."
Not bothering to spare him a glance Lucio asks, "What do you want, why haven't you killed me."
The woman looks to the red gaze but he doesn't look back so she sighs and says, "Honestly we don't know we were planning to just kill you and hear back buuuuut turns out the mission isn't over yet and headquarters wants the you guys, the young group, alive." She looks off to the side worriedly but quickly returns her gaze to him. He's about to ask more but she cuts him off, "Sorry but we don't know what they want from you guys we just gotta get you to them so for now we just wait until they're all done."
With a sigh Lucio looks around, "What happened to master." Instead of an answer the woman points behind her and when Lucio moves a bit to see what she's pointing at he's left stunned.
A bloody mangled corpse with a clear hole through her chest, had he not lived with her a few years he wouldn't have recognized her. He can see her heart laying on the ground behind her and recalls the wet thing that fell on his face. Reaching to his face he swipes at a large amount of blood that had fallen on his face from Valencia's heart. Silence falls over them as Lucio stares wide eyed at Valencia's corpse, 'She's dead...'
He expected to feel happy at being rid of her or even upset that he wasn't the one to kill her but he instead feels terrified, 'What now, what am I supposed to do now, where am I supposed to go? Will the thumb hunt me down, no they already abandoned Her,'
Before he can continue to dig himself deeper a loud beep sounds out, "Hmm seems it's finally happened."
The two Limbus Company employees look at the red gaze and he elaborates, "Sinner n.4 has unsheathed her blade." Everything comes to a grinding halt and Lucio joins the two in staring at the red gaze, "It would seem she is fighting the pinky and index apprentices."
'They're doing the final test without me? I suppose it doesn't matter I'd rather not take part and die... Wait,' "Pinky did you just say Pinky apprentice,"
Before the red gaze can respond the woman comments, "Ooo you two close?" With a smirk.
'Close? No, I mean I guess he was the apprentice I spoke to the most.' a memory of a late night duel crosses his mind but he shakes it away, "Not really." The woman pouts at his response but shrugs it away.
Before any other words can be shared between the four someone speaks up, "I am here at the orders of the detective to retrieve all the apprentices, the middle apprentice is already in our custody and Ezra is treating her wounds. Give me the thumb apprentice." The newly appointed yellow harpoon says to all of them. Lucio can see him narrow his eyes in disgust when he looks at Lucio.
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'Fascia will be happy to consume someone so strong' her joy is hard to hide from her face as Albina breaks out into a wide smile. All of her potential friends are just standing around talking to that blond person that suddenly became stronger, 'Callisto's notes said his name is Sinclair correct? And the others were...'
Faust and the stronger Sinclair along with Hohenheim seem to be discussing something so in the meantime Alyssa and Ishmael are holding off the two ring members. Because of Alyssa's injuries she's left to handle Albina while Ishmael goes for the nursefather.
Noticing a gap in Alyssa's attention Albina exploits it to try a surprise attack on the people standing around. Rushing out she lunges at Sinclair attempting to take a chunk out of him, but without even turning around he hits her with his halberd straight into the ground.
When she tries to stand up Sinclair steps down on her head applying pressure quickly, 'Fascia where's Fascia.' feeling around Albina realizes that Fascia is no longer in her hand but off to the side. As she tries more desperately to break free to get her she hears a voice say, "Sinclair stop. Limbus Company wants the apprentices kept alive."
At Faust's words Sinclair only hums as he lifts Albina up off the ground. She instantly moves to get Fascia almost tripping over herself to get to her as fast as possible, but just as she is about to grab her she's lifted into the air as Sinclair reaches her first.
He looks over the corpus and while Albina stares wide eyed too scared of what he may do to stop him. In a swift motion he raises Fascia high and lifts his knee but before he can smash it Albina yells, "PLEASE NO! YOU CAN KILL ME BUT NOT FASCIA!"
This brings pause to the three Limbus members, Faust closes her eyes while Hohenheim sighs and Sinclair huffs a laugh and lowers Fascia, but doesn't let go.
In a flash he's gone off towards the battle while Alyssa arrives back and attempts to fight Albina but noticing her fearful expression she pauses. Hohenheim, however, doesn't and gives a strong swing with his hammer to the back of Albina's head.
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The final test has just started and the two apprentices are struggling. Ren is able to guard himself but Ryoshu is able to easily break through his defense, Sora keeps forgetting things she can barely remember how she is supposed to fight at this point. She watches on as Ren is being torn apart by Ryoshu and the people of Limbus company stand to the side.
He's lost a leg already but there's no blood just a clean cut off, Sora has lost vision on one side of her face but she hasn't noticed as she can no longer remember having more then one eye. In a flash of yellow Ren disappears from Ryoshu's onslaught and just as Sora looks around to see where he went she feels a sharp pain in her hand.
Before she can even look she feels more and more pain envelop her body as Ryoshu turned her attention on her. Desperate and afraid she looks over at Rein, only to find him wearing that same calm smile as if none of it matters. Sora is left stunned, 'I'm failing... The prescripts lied? Or did they just not align with my will...'
She reaches out towards Rein and the man seems confused for a moment but gets a beep from his pager and when he observes his new prescript his smile returns and he looks at Sora and shakes his head. Sora is left stunned and as she is about to say something she is roughly grabbed and pulled away from Ryoshu.
A sudden surge of joy fills her as she looks up hoping to see her nursefather but is met with the newly appointed yellow harpoon. She finds herself a distance from the fight in the pinky hall, looking around she spots Ren who stared at his now broken sword. Before she can look more she hears a beep from the pager Rein has given her.
Hastily grasping the prescript Sora vaguely feels something missing from her hand but doesn't look too deep into it focusing on the prescript, 'Perhaps they did align, my will and the prescript's perhaps I only misunderstood.'
And she reads, "Return to the fight and allow yourself to be consumed by arayashiki." Sora stares at the prescript at a loss for words.
'But he promised me that I would join him. He lied, He lied to me, the prescripts lied to me. They both planned for me to die. They made me do horrible things and planed to kill me?! How could he?! WAS IT ALL FAKE?! I- I can't- I'll- I'LL KILL HIM!'
Her hands shake with rage as she throws the pager far across the room and lunges towards Rein leaving the room in a flash. In her rage she fails to notice Vespa attempt to grab her but being stopped by Moses, "Let her join the fight, you take all of them back to headquarters I'll keep an eye on her and keep Dante safe."
Hearing a beep Moses looks to find the discarded pager and sees a new prescript, "the previous prescript was false, follow your instincts".
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'An unexpected but not entirely unwelcome outcome I suppose. While death from such a trial would be one I could accept it would be most unfortunate to have forgot all my swords skills as I die.' Ren considers as he stares at his now broken blade, 'Not only have my skills been taken by her blade but so too has my own sword.'
The apprentice doesn't consider his missing limbs for even a moment only lamenting the loss of his memory.
With a mournful sigh he looks away to see his fellow apprentices and they're less then perfect health. Albina seemed mostly fine save a dent now being on the back of her head, however a look of fear is etched onto her face even in her unconscious state. Kira is also unconscious, her face filled with pain both emotional and physical her body doesn't reflect though he sees an empty k corp ampule laid next to her so he can only imagine what terrible injury she suffered to require one. And Lucio who is awake but the most beaten and bloody of them all, 'I suppose this was true even before the deaths of our nursefathers,' he's staring off to the side but Ren cannot read his expression.
For a moment the two had made eye contact but Lucio looked away just as fast.
Leaning his head against the wall he can still hear the sounds of fighting from the other room. At first he had watched the fight as it went on but seeing Sora's desperate anger saddened him too much to continue so he kept his eyes within the room.
The blond woman watches over the four apprentices keeping a close eye on Kira clearly worried for her state, once again rousing the question of what happened to her.
Having grown tired of the silence Ren asks, "What do you plan to do with us?" The woman looks over at him and sighs.
"Dunno we didn't chose to save you guys, though the detective may have saved Kira whether the company asked us to or not." Humming along he turns his gaze to the mentioned detective standing in the doorway alongside Ryoshu's manager.
They look at each other for a moment and Moses shakes her head conveying she doesn't know the answer either.
Refusing to return to silence, and to satiate his curiosity he asks, "What happened to Kira?"
Ezra takes in a sharp inhale while looking over at Kira with sadness, "That deadbeat 'papa' of her's practically sliced her in half just to try and attack the baby bee, his attack didn't even do much to him! He almost killed her and for nothing!"
Her voice grows louder from her anger and no one stops her, either from a lack of energy or agreeing with her rage but not adding on. Ren isn't particularly surprised at the turn of events from what little he saw of the two middle people her nursefather seemed to care very little for what Kira truly wanted or needed.
The sounds of the fighting die down and the manager walks out onto the battle field having decided it is safe to do, 'It would seem we will all soon be brought to Limbus Company once more. There is no point in fighting I could not win and what will I even be fighting for?'
Defeated Ren looks to the ceiling and mutters, "What will become of me?" Glancing towards the other apprentices he adds, "What will become of us?"