Forgotten Souls (JJK)

The dampened air clung to the corridor, heavy with an almost tangible weight, as though time itself had settled into the crumbling walls. The hallway was marred by erosion—its stones cracked, and its grandeur dimmed. Veilhem strode through it, his armor a relic of better days, its plates rusted and worn. The faint clinking of metal echoed with every step, the sound hollow in the suffocating silence.

The abnormal quiet unnerved him. It wasn't the stillness of peace but the eerie calm of a brewing storm, the kind that prickled under the skin and whispered of unseen calamities. He hoped that was just his imagination playing tricks but that too was broken down like a dam facing the flood.

Then, faintly, it came—the metallic scent of blood, sharp and unmistakable. The scent seeped into his nostrils, drawing a grimace across his face beneath the helmet. His chest tightened as unease crept into his mind. A flicker of worry crossed his thoughts: Makima and the students. 

Makima had the contract that could transfer the damage taken to him so he didn't worry much about her but that couldn't be said with the students he was in charge with.

He quickened his pace, his metal boots striking the stone floor with purpose. The dim light barely guided him, but instinct urged him forward. The deeper he went, the stronger the scent grew, mingling with the acrid staleness of the corridor. And then, as the hallway opened into a larger chamber, he saw it.

The scene unfolded like a waking nightmare.

A ruined battlefield stretched before him, chaos carved into the very architecture. Cavities marked the walls, their jagged edges like the aftermath of an explosive force striking them. Rubble littered the floor, smeared with streaks of crimson. The stench of death hung oppressively in the air, curling around him with a cruel familiarity. 

Veilhem's gaze fell first upon the body of Geto, sprawled on the ground with lifeless eyes fixed on the ceiling above. He was no longer the cheerful and serious student Veilhem once knew. His form was crumpled, defeated, his once-vivid presence reduced to this still, haunting shell. 

Nearby lay something far worse—a severed head, its face frozen in a grotesque expression of horror. It belonged to a girl he didn't recognize, but her placement, almost artful in its grotesqueness, spoke of the madness of the one who did this. A deliberate act of cruelty carried out by a lunatic with no regard for human life.

The sight turned Veilhem's stomach. He swallowed hard, his breath catching as he forced himself to look away.

Then his eyes found her.

Standing amidst the carnage, her fiery red hair catching the faint light, was Makima. She alone appeared untouched by the destruction, her figure poised and calm. Her gaze lingered on Geto's broken form, her expression unreadable.

At the sound of Veilhem's approach—his armor announcing his presence with its weary clinks—she turned toward him. For a fleeting moment, her eyes met his, and he felt something deep, unspeakable, ripple beneath the surface of her usual serene and stoic demeanor.

"Oh, Veilhem-san." she greeted, her voice light, almost cheerful, as she tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. Her smile was warm, disarming. "You're earlier than I expected. Did you hurt yourself on the way?"

The dissonance between her demeanor and the carnage around her was almost gruesome, like a melody twisted into the discord of a grandeur chord.

Veilhem opened his mouth to speak, but no words came. His thoughts scrambled for answers, his instincts screaming at him to question, to demand, but he couldn't find the strength to do so.

Her smile remained unwavering, though the warmth in her words seemed to mask something cold, something calculating that was very different from the one that he was accustomed to. Veilhem knew he was standing before someone far more dangerous than the horrors littering the floor.

"Makima…" he finally managed, his voice strained. "What… what happened here?" Somewhere in his unbeaten heart, he hoped this wasn't what he was thinking about. Even though there was evidence etching on the scene. He labeled it as nonsense, hoping it would turn out not to be the thing he feared the most. 

But then, there was a pause between them. Perhaps the unnatural silence between them that unsettled him the most. 

Veilhem stared at her, his breath catching in his chest as her words settled over the room like a shroud.

"I simply ensured everything went as it should."

"Makima…" Veilhem whispered, his voice trembling, the certainty and strength in his voice lost at this moment. "You… you did all of this, didn't you." 

Her smile didn't falter. If anything, it softened, as though she were indulging a frightened child. "Did what, Veilhem-san?" she asked innocently, tilting her head.

He took a step back, his armor clinking sharply in the silence. "Don't play games with me!" he snapped, his voice rising in anger and disbelief. "You know exactly what I mean by that!!"

Makima's expression remained maddeningly serene. She closed the distance between them with slow, deliberate steps, her boots crunching softly against the rubble. "It had to be done because it's necessary." she said simply as if stating an obvious fact.

Her words were a dagger to his chest, twisting with each syllable. He had trusted her. Makima, the lovely lady who shared many memories with him. 

Even though he knew that she was a Devil and did research on that, he thought that he could change her, looking back now, how foolish of him. She wasn't called a Devil by nothing. Now… 

He felt like a fucking moron for that obvious lie he pulled upon himself.

"Necessary?" he repeated, his low voice cracking and grunting. "How can this be necessary? They were under your wings! Your fucking students!"

She stopped a mere step away from him, her golden eyes locking onto his with an intensity that froze him in place. "And now they're necessary sacrifices." she said, her voice as soft as a caress. "Every step forward requires loss, Veilhem-san. You know that better than anyone here, don't you?"

Her words echoed in his mind, each one landing like a blow, stripping away the fragile hope he'd clung to.

"I will create a world where you don't need to suffer, a world where you don't need to drown yourself in immense guilt, a utopia only for you, my dear." Her tone was devoid of malice, yet laced with an unshakable certainty that made his stomach churn, an excuse for this massacre. She reached out, her slender fingers brushing against the Dark Sigil embedded in his chest. Slowly, she traced the ominous circle with a caressing touch.

"I didn't ask for this." Veilhem's voice was low, a growl barely containing the storm of emotions threatening to erupt.

"Yes." She replied smoothly, her tone matter-of-fact, as though dismissing his objection as a minor inconvenience. "I know very well that you would object to this plan, but I'm doing it regardless of your will." She didn't even try to hide the fact that she was the one who caused this scene here. Her aloofness was infuriating, a cold indifference that grated against the turmoil of his feelings.

Veilhem's hands clenched into trembling fists at his sides. "Why?" His voice cracked as he demanded an explanation. "Why are you doing this? Give me a reason… any reason… that could possibly justify this horror."

Soon, her smile deepened, though her eyes remained sharp, piercing through him like a dagger that twisted at his heart. 

Her golden eyes glimmered with an unsettling calm, her smile deepening. "Why?" she echoed, her tone as smooth as silk and devoid of any concern. "I simply ensured everything went as it should. The scars you carry won't heal completely, but they can fade. Every step I've taken is an investment in that cause. Do you find it plausible?"

The utter lack of remorse in her voice made Veilhem recoil. For all the horrors he had seen, it wasn't the carnage that chilled him—it was Makima herself. The way she spoke of suffering as if it were a currency to be spent, lives as mere tools to achieve her end.

Silence stretched between them. Makima tilted her head, a faint trace of worry crossing her otherwise flawless demeanor. "Why are you acting like this? I'm genuinely confused." she said, her voice laced with what sounded like genuine concern.

He studied her face, searching for even a glimmer of understanding."You asked because you don't know or was it sarcasm?" Veilhem muttered, his voice thickened with disbelief as he squinted his eyes and took a step back. He felt betrayed at first but at her question, he realized that wasn't the case. 

Sensing the anger beneath his tone, Makima's brow furrowed ever so slightly as though she were reflecting on her actions. Even though she had explained it thoroughly, he didn't seem to accept her explanation.

Veilhem's mind raced, a relentless storm of thoughts clashing against one another. The betrayal he felt twisted into something else, something far worse. It wasn't just a simple betrayal. It was a horrifying realization that she didn't understand.

Veilhem's hands trembled at such incredulous thought dawning on him. His mind ran at full speed to find a way to reconcile with this woman standing in front of him. Yet he also realized that it was just a futile effort, another lie to cloud himself from the truth he must face.

The Makima he knew was calm, and intelligent, exuding a commanding aura. That figure was nowhere to be found from the mad woman who couldn't even grasp the depth of her own atrocity. Or perhaps she had never existed. What stood before him now was a Devil wearing the mask of a human, a creature detached from the very essence of humanity.

Her question, spoken with a genuine concern, echoed in his head. "Why are you acting like this?"

It wasn't mockery nor was it manipulation but it was a genuine and unfeigned confusion. 

She didn't even understand. His hands trembled even more as he stared at her in disbelief. It was simply absurd.

Makima wasn't callous in a way a human would be. Some are driven by greed, some by their malice against others, or simply by their cruelty. No, she wasn't anything like that but far worse.

She was a being that was detached and disconnected from even the basic threads of morality that made a human… human. She was driven by a certainty in her belief with no boundaries to hold her back. Like that of a child being given too much power at hand. 

A Devil who imitated humans… that's what she was.

Veilhem took a shaky step back, making a clicking noise of his armor grazing against each other. "You don't even see it…" His voice was tired and lifeless, barely audible even with the stillness enveloped them.

"See what?" Makima tilted her head slightly, the faintest trace of curiosity about what she did wrong that he was acting like this all of a sudden.

"This!" Veilhem clamored, pointing wildly at the atrocity behind her with a frown. "What the fuck is this then?! You don't even comprehend the weight of the action you've done, do you?" 

Her serene expression faltered for a brief moment, her head shrinking back slightly like a chastised child. She blinked and glanced over her shoulder at the carnage he pointed to, then turned back to him with that maddeningly calm demeanor.

"Weight?" She muttered as if to try and understand the word he said. "I've only done what deem as necessary, Veilhem-san. Nothing that cannot be dealt with after." 

"Collateral damage? Collateral damage you say." Veilhem sighed heavily as if he couldn't understand a word from this woman anymore. He shielded his eyes with his hand to calm himself down. But of course, it didn't help. 

"They trusted you." He pointed his finger at her and continued. "They followed your words because they trusted you... And so did I…" It felt like there was something stuck in his throat that he found these words hard to get out. His voice dropped to a whisper, raw and broken.

"Thus I'm doing my best to ensure your safety." Makima's calm gaze didn't falter. "This is the most efficient way to achieve your goal, Veilhem-san." She said this like it was because of him that she did this. It managed to tick at his nerves with how absurd this whole situation came out. Veilhem's laughter was bitter, and hollow, like a man at the edge of despair. 

Makima, seemingly unaware of this, tiptoed on her feet and coiled her arms around his neck in a lovely manner. She buried her face into his chest to let the unique odorless scent of him seep into her nostrils more carefully, savoring every second as she kept wiggling her head into his chest. He froze as she leaned into him, pressing her face to his chest.

Then she gazed at him with her glowing upturned eyes. "You're not tired of living, Veilhem-san." she murmured, her voice tender. "You're tired of suffering." Her words struck him like a hammer to the chest. For a fleeting moment, he wanted to believe her, to let himself fall into her embrace and be free of the crushing weight he had carried for so long. But he was also aware of reality before him.

He was not a fool.

"And yet you do this…" His voice cracked, raw anguish and despair bleeding into his tone. He grabbed her shoulders and pushed her away gently yet firmly, creating some space between them, as though the distance might help him think less emotionally and more logically. 

Makima blinked at him with her golden eyes, flinching a bit at the thought of Veilhem rejecting her. But she soon returned to her usual smile, this time with a touch of plea for his understanding. 

Was it another mask? 

He didn't know and he did not need to know. 

"And this is your solution to my misery?" Veilhem asked, his voice raising a few decibels compared to before. "Turning the students into your pawns so you could do whatever you want? The lives of the people who trust you were nothing but mere collateral damage to you?" 

Makima blinked, her golden eyes softening as if pleading for his understanding. "You'll see in time, Veilhem-san," she said, her smile faint but unyielding. "This is the only way to bring you happiness."

"No," he said, his voice steadying as anger gave him strength. "This isn't happiness. This is madness. You don't save someone by ripping apart everything they care about."

"But wouldn't it be enough to have only me at your side?" she murmured, her voice soft but laced with a twisted desperation that teetered on the edge of madness.

Veilhem froze for a moment, the weight of her words settling heavily on him. That singular statement embodied everything wrong with her, her inability to see the world beyond her own distorted perspective, the way she reduced the vast tapestry of human connections to a singular, self-centered bond.

"No." he said quietly, his voice resolute and firm. "It wouldn't. It never will."

He turned away, his movements deliberate and slow, disappointment etched into every step. He didn't spare her another glance, unwilling to waste any more words on her delusions.

Makima's hand reached out, her fingers brushing against the hem of his cloak in a futile attempt to stop him. "Wait." she whispered, her voice barely audible.

Veilhem paused just long enough to glance over his shoulder. "Then why don't you control me through the pact we have? That way you can do whatever the fuck you want with me. Does it make any difference with what you're doing?" The glare he cast her was cold and piercing, a look that spoke volumes of his rejection and resolve.

Her fingers loosened instinctively, and she let go, watching helplessly as he strode away, his silhouette swallowed by the shadows of the corridor.

"Oh, you can't. Fucking ridiculous." He muttered barely audible for her to hear.

Makima stood frozen, her hand lingering in the air where his presence had been moments before. Slowly, she lowered it, her expression unreadable. For a long moment, she remained still, as though processing the events that had just transpired.

Then, without warning, a single tear rolled down her cheek, its warmth was an unfamiliar sensation against her otherwise cold, detached visage. She raised a hand to touch it, her fingers trembling slightly as if she didn't understand what it meant.

"Why…" she murmured to herself, her voice cracking ever so slightly. The question hung in the air, unanswered, as the distant echo of Veilhem's footsteps faded into silence.

Something in her had broken without her even knowing that.

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(A/N: Why do I have to keep shooting myself in the foot with this complicated and toxic relationship? This is frying my brain.)

(I want to write another fic bro... suggest me something. This fic is kinda getting out of hands for an amateur like me.)