Code Vein Fanfic

Cups of shiny glass laid in order atop the cupboard in the bar of the cathedral.

Revenants don't get sick by normal means as their immune system is as powerful as their near-immortal bodies. 

Nonetheless, Coco dusted off all the cups and glasses of wine.

If there was one thing that had remained true throughout her life, it was that first impressions always matter. 

Many say that one shouldn't judge a book by its cover…

But for what other reason did the cover of a book even exist? There are many signs of how a person has led their life in their appearance.

The cathedral wasn't a small place, yet it was clean for a reason… two reasons, Coco and Rin.

Although most of the gang leaves for every expedition, the place never feels empty for Coco, after all, Rin's rants were worth ten people arguing and interrupting each other for the same opinion when she was set off.

But she had underestimated how much a certain group of people could affect the flow of guests in the base.

It was just four of them, yet, one happened to have what it takes to break the dam and suddenly the place became flooded with people.

Coco now was the busiest she has ever been since the purge of named revenants from years ago.

Not like she could complain. She might've given discounts to her partners since they brought her material and equipment, saving her time and keeping her stocks up, but she wasn't about to be so merciful to the influx of bums who thought they had a membership just because they slept nearby.

There were too many for them to remain in the cathedral, but the building itself wasn't the only place they could reside in. There was a hall that the church used for events, though, it was mostly a sauna now. Even so, they also had a yard and some old classrooms where Catholic classes used to take place.

The last two required some fixing for housing, but it wasn't a big deal for superhumans who carried steel beams with one arm. However, super strength didn't equal engineering and construction knowledge.

But it was fine, some people with the right skills were on their way.

'They should do that much if they want to be at our home base…' Coco glanced at her reflection in the cup of glass.

Homebase

A place that Coco had initially thought of as a temporary shelter after she and Louis had agreed to form a temporary truce had become the closest thing to a home 

Yes, temporary, that was what it was supposed to be, but one can't predict the turns that life will take no matter how old one grows.

A girl who talked more than a penny-pincher customer trying to haggle and a man who could laugh off the worst financial loss after a scam walked out of the corner.

Suddenly, the crumbling cathedral was fixed and became a proper base for them to return to. They could sleep, eat, and play—simple things that had become luxuries for the revenants trying to live in the city.

Though Louis and Yakumo were by themselves on expeditions where teams of revenants were needed, they would go and return through the door, unlike the others who, if they got lucky, would return by reassembling through a mistle… as for the unlucky ones… they return as something else or as nothing at all.

Right, the team for expeditions was just the two of them… and then, out of nowhere, the team tripled in size.

Among the four new members, two appeared to be different from the people she had met.

Those two were almost the same as each other but for different reasons.

Like they were just born into this world.

A girl who wouldn't give a glance to anything that wasn't related to the man she followed with the stubbornness of a child. She appeared to not even know common sense but Coco could see depth in her eyes that didn't belong to someone so naive-looking.

And a man who looked at everything with childlike wonder despite bearing certain desperation in his eyes. He acted like a kid in a candy store at times. Yet he looks at things as if he knew them very well, it could be attributed to his foggy memory as loss of memory doesn't stop familiarization.

A revenant still remembers how to walk and fight no matter what.

But it wasn't just that.

Coco felt like Adam had seen through her the moment they saw each other… before they even started a conversation. 

'I hadn't thought of it back then since staring at those eyes almost had me jumping out of my skin.' Coco found a crack in the cup.

However, eyes that made you feel like a lamb in front of a wolf weren't that bad if those eyes looked for any way to help you.

She was glad that, as it turns out, the cover for this book was wrong.

Now, if that help was something one was ready to take, it depended on the person.

Lost memories are a coin flip that revenants have to live through as death comes around every corner.

There is a chance you won't forget anything… but how can you know?

Will you forget something insignificant, will it be the very reason you live for, or maybe a soul-crushing truth?

What will be the difference between you and the lost around you after losing it?

God help your soul if you begin to ponder such questions.

When you get a chance, will you want them back?

What if it's a horrible truth?

Will you want it to be gone then?

Would you regret your choice and blame your curiosity? 

Curse your stubbornness? 

Wish back your emptiness?

'I don't know…' Her gray dull eyes analyzed the fracture in the glass. They were murky, but firm.

"-I said that we are going out!" Yakumo left Louis' research lab with the owner on his shoulder, carrying him like a sack of potatoes.

Louis remained slumped despite the sudden kidnapping…

You don't bleed forever.

The wounds will eventually close.

It will become a scar.

And one day you will bear it with poise…

'But they never tell you the last part.' Coco's gaze left the fractured glass and peered into Louis'.

The dull and unfocused eyes of a man who keeps looking into the past.

'Phantom pain remains.'

'But I know you will get up, I saw you do it once already.' Coco turned around and put the fractured glass atop the cupboard with the rest.

'You won't stay down when you have this many people around you.' With a deep breath, Coco turned back to the team gathering near the mistle.

"I'll have some drinks ready when you come back!" She waved with a smile, no sign of doubt across her face.

Adam, Io, Yami, Oliver, and Yakumo with Louis over his shoulder waved back.

""Appreciate it!""

…

'How will "my" memories affect me when I recover them?' Adam wondered as he teleported everyone through the mistle.

The times Adam had experienced a vestige, he felt like he was there in the memory, not that he was the one experiencing it. 

As if seeing things from a third point of view while still being aware of what the person had experienced. He knew what they felt.

Yes, there was a clear distinction between them and him.

Will it be different for the memories that belonged to this new body of his?

A cruel truth can break a man faster than any lie…

'Even then, I believe that this is necessary.' Adam remained firm in giving everyone their memories if they wanted, even if he knew they weren't at all sweet memories.

'Though it's ironic coming from me.' He had decided to stop himself from remembering anything from his past for some doubts he had. Only game knowledge and nothing else.

'It's possible…' As Adam and the rest approached their destination, he paid attention to his BOR parasite…

It remained with him wherever he went, even when he went inside his mind space. 

'I will deal with you soon.' With that last thought, Adam and the team arrived.

Under the morning sky, a city gone to ruin remained.

Streets devastated.

Buildings were razed to the ground.

And any fauna hardly survived its polluted environment.

In such a place, a group of revenants materialized near a mistle in the middle of an intersection lifted by the Thorns of Judgement.

It wasn't packed with many abandoned cars or the old crude fortifications found in every corner of the city.

It was somewhat clean.

Yakumo and the unresponsive researcher on his shoulder remained as the rest of the group left the vicinity.

Louis had been in an unresponsive state for more than a day. Simply holed in his lab without coming out. It could've been longer had Yakumo not barged in.

"A man of the pen will talk, a man of the sword will strike, today I'll teach you to be the latter." He effortlessly threw Louis with a single arm and saw the young man flail for a moment in midair before a burst of fire enveloped the researcher.

It appeared to be aimless but the control over his Blood Code was not something just anyone could achieve.

The ball of fire around Louis lost considerable mass as he landed and dispersed around, landing a few yards away. The fire revealed a crouching Louis as if he hadn't been thrown like a doll.

Seemingly uncaring of such treatment, he appeared willing to listen to what Yakumo had to say.

"Now that you finally know what the heavy feeling in your chest is, I'm pretty sure you can hold it and swing around," Yakumo followed and threw Louis's blade like a stick that didn't weigh dozens of pounds, the force behind it almost made it seem like an attack rather than a pass.

*whosh*

"..." Louis' hair was blown back the moment he caught his crimson blade and revealed a pair of dull red eyes.

The name Crimson Blade wasn't really something he wanted to earn.

It was but a side effect of wanting to do something, anything, to stop feeling and thinking of his past. 

And, at one moment, he couldn't think of the past as it faded from his mind. Yet, the ache in his chest wouldn't let him simply rest in a moment of silence.

All remains of people and camps were a reminder of his frailty.

Screams for help that didn't have to be cried.

Lives that shouldn't have been lost.

The many memories that had been erased.

He had been trying to keep his head above water by just getting rid of some scum for quick relief that he was doing something good for the world.

But, even after meeting everyone at the home base, that feeling hadn't gone anywhere.

It was still there.

And now it was more clear than ever that he would be stuck with it until he stopped being him.

"Alright then," Yakumo held his weapon up, "it all starts and ends with this– Would you have done it?"

"..."

No response.

"..."

He heard it.

"..."

A question was asked.

"..."

But it's hard to even attempt to acknowledge those words with the buzzing in his ears.

"..."

He could still hear that alarm when he failed to do the one thing Cruz begged in his arms to do…

….

"Ki|l m€£…" He felt her slender hand grip his shirt as she agonized to even speak those words. Her soft and tender voice was becoming hoarse at times.

She writhed as dark-blue veins spread around her body from her chest. The blue tinges spread around her face and invaded her eyes.

"L-LoUIS!" She cried through gritted teeth as the grip on his chest became more desperate, but this time it carried the strength that didn't belong to a human.

"Huh?" He could barely process it. He was frozen in place, cold sweat running down his back.

It was supposed to be another visit after she recovered from a medical test. She had struggled a few times but it always ended shortly. It never got worse…

But she had suddenly collapsed and now she had… changed.

"Please!" She curled up in his arms.

Soon after, the door to the room swung open.

"You- what are you doing, didn't you hear the alarm?!" Karen shouted as she entered the room with a medical cart and guards by her side.

"Louis!!!" She shouted at the unresponsive man.

"louislʘuisloʊis-" He simply couldn't care less about his surroundings as the girl in his arms was losing her sense of rationality, she was crumbling no matter how tight he held her.

"-what are you!-" He found himself forcefully separated from Cruz by the guards, his chest now bare as his shirt was still in Cruz's grip.

"HEĻϸ!" She writhed as she was restrained, the dark blue veins becoming more prominent as her voice warped with an unnerving cadence.

He didn't know what to do.

Was he supposed to kill her?

Why???

What if she could be helped?

But how???

He didn't know.

"You have to leave!" Karen held Louis' after he was let go off by the guard.

They could barely suppress the writhing girl. They all had to restrain her to the bed.

"Wai- but Cru,-" He could barely form a sentence, his eyes still on Cruz.

Louis saw the guards attempting to restrain Cruz.

"Hold her tight, use the bed's restraints-"

His sister grabbed his arm and dragged him, "Listen to me!" 

"Pass me the serum!" A guard ordered his partner.

"I'm not leaving!" Louis stood firm and rejected.

Their exchange was not interrupted by the guards, they were too busy. "No effect- we are too late, use the sedatives!"

"You can't help her right now!" Karen shouted to her little brother without letting go of him.

 "Keep her steady!"

"I can try!" The younger sibling shouted back

 "She won't stop moving- Another sedative now!" 

Karen yelled, "Don't you understand there is nothing you can do!!!"

 "We are out of sedativ-"

Louis snapped back, "You don't know that!!!"

 "-proceed with a discharge!" 

"LOUIS! Stop being-" Karen pulled him harder.

Louis heard a certain crackling before-

"ÆĦĥĤ₋Ŭɠ⪇Ϗ!!!" An unnatural yell reverberated within the room, but quickly after, the sound of current running through Cruz's body suppressed it…

A stomach-churning smell of burned meat quickly appeared.

"Ah…" Karen found herself on the ground, holding her hurting arm…

"..." she stared at the silent Louis who appeared to not believe it just like her.

An argument had never been this physical between the two siblings…

That one second when Louis realized what he had done was excruciatingly long.

"I…" Words trailed off as Louis saw a puddle of water reach his feet… the vase with flowers from the coffee table had smashed to the ground.

His mind came to reality once again once he heard a weak voice, so frail he could only hear it in this moment of stillness.

"Loui'..."

Cruz.

"Hey, you-" a guard attempted to restrain Louis from behind, seeing that he hadn't evacuated yet.

*thunk*

The guard stumbled backward as blood stained his helmet, he held what was left of a white shirt in his hand.

"...He will be a problem." The guard calmly stated as he saw Louis rushing over towards Cruz as he bled from the back of his head.

He didn't stop at the sound of a metallic click he heard behind him. He didn't need to be an expert to know what it was.

The click of a gun pointed at him.

But the pain he expected didn't appear as he thought.

Instead-

*tzzzz*

His body tensed up and saw the perpetrator right by his side with a taser.

'Aurora- when did she-'

Everything turned to darkness.

…

"I should've killed her," Louis said with a heavy heart.

"Is that what you wanted to do?" 

He heard a voice near him.

*clank!*

The impact lifted him momentarily despite intercepting it with his sword.

Louis gritted his teeth as the attacks continued.

But he never fought back.

Was he unable to?

No, Yakumo knew well that Louis could do more.

The concrete cracked under his feet as he never avoided an attack. His hands were becoming numb, his knees weaker, and his head dizzier.

To fight head-on a revenant with a strengthening blood code requires an equal amount of power or guts.

The Louis that simply took on the assault appeared to have none. His endurance of pain wasn't one with a goal.

"Tch! You are doing nothing!!" And Yakumo clearly saw that.

*CLANK*

Yakmuo struck again and Enduring Crimson, Louis' weapon, was flung out of his hand.

"You don't deserve to hold his weapon!"

With such an opening, Yakumo let go of his weapon and grabbed Louis from his shirt by the chest and the back collar before holding him above his head and throwing him.

Raw violence.

There was no care in his handling this time.

The wind howled past his ears as Louis couldn't even make heads or tails. But the unwillingness to do anything against this punishment was still clear.

Not even when he hit a car on the way and bounced off of it before finally feeling a pain spreading across his back signaling his landing.

That's right.

He didn't need to do something about it.

He shouldn't.

This was what he deserved, right?

Louis' glassy eyes stared at the sky defiled by smoke and ash.

The city was a hell on earth.

Fires that refuse to die even after there are no more corpses to consume.

An unending blizzard that even in the middle of summer was freezing still what was once a lively villa.

The once blue and untamed waves of an ocean were all stained by a sickening crimson color, smelling of death.

The landscapes and homes were indiscriminately destroyed by thorns.

Wasn't this all his fault?

Louis heard a sigh as a pair of footsteps drew near.

"Is this what you did when she needed you?" 

…

Pain.

Before a thought could be born and before any action could be taken, pain existed before them.

"Ahh-" Only after regaining consciousness could Louis understand that he was injured.

He gritted his teeth as the wound on his arm gushed blood. Before it could get any worse, he used what was left of his shirt to firmly tie it around the wound and used the blanket nearby to add another layer.

The red smudges stopped spreading across the makeshift bandage. He will be safe for a time.

He sighed as he looked around.

He was detained… or, he was supposed to be.

But…

"Was this a cell?" He saw that only half of the room remained as the other was destroyed by some black spike.

A loud siren blaring through the base told him that this whole situation wasn't so simple. Its pattern was different from the one he heard before.

Unfortunately, he wasn't allowed to ponder on his surroundings.

"Æ₦ĤĤĤĦĦĦĦ௹௹ɦħʯ" A sound that could be barely described as a cry was heard throughout the base, drowning the alarm momentarily.

"A-an attack??? Just-" Louis stood up trying to remember what had happened before a name crossed his mind.

'…Where is she?'

Continuous beeping from machines and flickering of the lights began to grow in number by the second and the alarm noise began to cut out.

Louis climbed up the rubble and left his cell through the hole made by the thorn.

Chaos.

The facilities were damaged almost beyond repair, corpses from the aftermath littered the ground in uniform while others in white coats, some recognizable and others not so much.

But-

'Is she still there?!' Louis immediately ran through the remains of the facilities directly to the medical building partly standing.

No care in his eyes about the sudden appearance of ditches and cliffs. 

He ran faster than he had ever done in his life, his aching body full of scrapes and bruises didn't bother him. 

The medical building wasn't far, but the sprint felt endless.

What if he had already run past her body?

Would he recognize her?

What is it that made him believe that she is alive?

Is he just being delusional?

Logic and reason spoke to make sense of the situation.

However, his heart rang louder in his ears as his breath became ragged.

Louis almost tripped more than once on the new slopes and steep falls on the roads that not even marching tanks would leave a mark on.

His run came to a halt once he reached the hallway of the medical building.

Debris stood in his way.

"Haaaaa…." Louis supported himself on a wall with his only good arm, black spots in his vision slowly disappearing as he recovered some of his breath.

Explosions and gunshots rang through the military complex, and roars of unknown origin also began to resound, yet Louis couldn't be bothered.

With a hurried pace, he went deeper down the hall and jumped or went around the rubble. The white walls of the complex had been stained with gore the closer he got to the patient room.

He gritted his teeth as worry filled his heart.

'...please.'

A frown of disgust formed on his face as the odor of blood and guts invaded his nose, but he walked on the path of gore nonetheless.

'...Please.'

Eventually, Louis saw a metal door vent and beat still holding up to the frame…

'... Please!'

A special girl should be behind it.

'… PLEASE!!!'

The shoes that had turned crimson with blood became impatient to reach their destination. And, with a trembling hand.

"CRUZ!!!" 

The only response he got was an echo.

"..." 

"Ah-" Louis couldn't muster a word as he saw a white-haired woman in a dirtied hospital gown with blood and dirt, yet the rag on her hand remained free from filth.

She stayed unresponsive as her figure stood atop rubble close to a thorn that had pierced the facility from the ground.

Her figure gazed at it. The thorn appeared to be damaged.

Something was wrong, horribly so.

Cruz remained still, a disturbing aura emanating from her.

No movement.

She didn't blink.

Nor did it appear that she had breath.

Cold…

Like a corpse.

Only after Louis stepped on broken glass in an attempt to reach her did she acknowledge his existence.

"I… I'm here-" Louis felt every hair on his body stand on end.

His body refused to move as if his blood was replaced by ice.

The world around him seemed distant as if viewed through a long dark tunnel, at the end, his eyes met the gaze of her purple eyes in the abyss of her eye sockets.

Every fiber of his being told him to stay still in front of death so it might lose interest in him.

Yet, with frozen breath and lacking a heartbeat, his rigid body took another step.

"Cruz-" He saw the arm holding onto the torn remains of his shirt move.

The arm began to tremble while rigidly extending in his direction and a pale thorn, unlike any other, formed behind her.

"Cru-"

*Thuck*

…

"Is failing to kill her what has you like this?" Yakumo glared at the wilted researcher.

"..." 

"...Fine." He had known the man long enough to know it didn't stop at that. 

There was plenty, but what's the point if it wasn't Louis who said it?

Not answering the question made any progress meaningless.

"Crimson Sword and The Next Revolutionary Scientist and Doctor… Living up to the titles, ain't ya'" The ex-mercenary dragged Louis by the back collar of his coat.

It was specially made, though, not by Alexander, the maker of Louis' weapon.

"... don't call me that," Louis muttered in bitterness before being smashed through an old barricade.

"People will call you that even if you don't want to…" Yakumo glanced at the empty coat-like blood veil briefly before looking at Louis getting up in the distance.

Putting the coat on top of the destroyed barricade, Yakumo began to approach Louis. "You know, the people you've helped get shelter are already talking. I wonder how long The Crimson Sword title remains as scary as it is-"

"Stop that!" Louis snapped, "I know what you are trying to do! But I can't! Those words and sentiments are for a farce of a man, I'm not and never was what they believed!"

"It's all my fault!" He cried and pointed at himself.

"I am the reason they don't have a home! It's me who has started all of this!" He shouted.

"How many people have fought and killed each other because I couldn't- I- couldn't do it! Kevin was too damn young to be fighting for his life! Not just him, there are children out there for goodness sake!!!" His voice shook.

"I can't stand looking at their broken homes, their hollow eyes! They all have that look- 

Why me?

Why my mother- 

my father-

my sister- 

my brother-

our house-

WHY. US.!'

I fucking can't!!!" He howled before kicking the rubble near him.

The woeful man gritted his teeth. "I- I am no doctor, just an overestimated med student, I haven't saved anyone. All my research was because of my father. I wanted to think that I would be closer to him if I studied all he had discovered… I… I am not as selfless as everyone thinks."

"Not selfless… you are right," Yakumo mulled over as he walked closer, "But you are also wrong, your hand didn't put BOR Parasites in children to fight a war, it's not your fault that a murderer kills or a thief steals… but-" 

Yakumo stood face to face with a miserable Louis, "You are even more wrong thinking you know what I am doing."

*Thud*

Air involuntarily left Louis' lungs as a fist struck his stomach. His feet skidded across the ground as he barely remained on his feet.

"How long are you going to keep this up?" A reprimand rang in his ears as the researcher recovered, barely standing.

"..." He didn't answer.

*thud*

"Until you die?" Yakumo growled.

*thud*

"..." Blood splattered on the street.

*thud*

"Is life that hard for you?" 

*thud*

"..." He fell on the ground

"What a worthless man, you still won't say it?" Yakumo snarled, his green eyes filled with disgust while looking at the researcher.

No word was spoken from Louis.

A sigh escaped from Yakumo's lips, "Would you've done it?"

There was no need for more words to understand.

It was the question that had yet to be answered.

Louis' sorry figure on the ground slowly hugged his legs and buried his head in his knees.

"..." 

"I asked you if you would have DONE. IT.?" The question was repeated in a firmer tone.

"No…" The poor man began to tremble.

A truth about himself he found detestable.

"I wouldn't have killed her," a small pitiful laugh sounded, "I… even after seeing it all… I know I wouldn't have killed her."

Yakumo exhaled deeply seeing the state of his partner. 

Sniffles and whines remained of the man many feared.

He had lost his father and attempted to be closer to him even when that person wasn't there.

Louis was too afraid to lose another person he loved.

When it came to it, turned his back on his own sister.

Willing to throw it all out just for Cruz.

The guilt haunted him.

Kids who didn't even know what the world was before The Great Collapse existed because of him. 

He stole the futures of many.

How many sons, daughters, and parents had become unkillable monsters?

…he saw the consequences of his actions, yet he knew he wouldn't have killed Cruz even if he had to choose again.

To forsake it all…

He wasn't a good person.

He was incredibly selfish.

No man to look up to.

"...I'm just a pathetic man." Louis sobbed.

"No," Yakumo interrupted, "you are worse."

He crouched near Louis, "Right now, you are only valuing your love, not hers."

His words lacked the anger or characteristic oomph he had until now.

They were glacial and sharp.

"A person loves more than people. The flowers one smelled, food tasted, the sky everyone lives under, the sea one gazes upon, and things one is proud to have made."

The temperature dropped, and a pair of light green eyes picked apart the man on the ground who tugged his hair as he heard those words.

"You are a wretched man who values only what he has lost, a coward who wallows in his own pity while letting the things others love turn to dust-"

*Thud*

Yakumo almost fell on his back.

"Hah-" He couldn't help but smile once he found the taste of blood in his mouth.

He peered into the eyes of the man who punched him, they were no longer hollow, they were livid. The tears falling down his eyes turned into steam as the surroundings began to heat up.

Yakumo spat the broken teeth stuck in his mouth. 

"Good."

____________________________________________________________________________

Chapter Title- Sucker For Love

Word Count: 4883

What's your take on In-game Louis other than "aw, what a sad boi" and the general "the man who yet dreams in a nightmare"

And, yeah, how Cruz frenzied here isn't how it happened in-game.

If you remember, or just didn't play the game and are still reading for some reason, Louis was with her when she became the Queen and killed everyone… But the more I thought about it, shouldn't there be guards?

Karen, as the head nurse, should've barged into the room to pacify Cruz.

I don't know how he would've left her when she was suffering so I made it this way. I believe that his indecisiveness at the moment is what he regretted the most. He refused to leave her but couldn't do what she begged him to do.

A rift was created between the siblings.

There is also the thing of how Louis pretty much sorta says "that's a crazy memory, am I right? Anyway, let's keep going-" and the game continues.

To be fair, that happened during an expedition, it had to be addressed in a way that it wouldn't break the gameplay.