With all my strength, I grip Nero's wrist. With my other hand now on his arm, I turn him towards me. Facing my new master, tears threaten to burst. Pulling his mask from his face then lifting my own, I meet the deep pools of his eyes with my own. Unblinking, I hold his soul-chilling, lifeless gaze.

He was going to do it. He was going to raise his arm and murder those children. I know he was…

I know he was…

Did I make a mistake? Was I wrong to submit myself to this monster? That's what he is, isn't it? What else but a monster can do what he's done?

What he was going to do?

The way he cut through those people… Uncaring, without remorse, hesitation, or even passion. Even that lunatic, Huntress, had some reaction to her violence. She's insane, but her insanity, it's still... human. Twisted and debase, but human. Nero, however, his apathy to it all… killing so casually it almost seems mundane… I don't know what that is. I don't know what he is. The only word that comes to me is monster.

Shaking, and crying, and screaming, the children hold each other with desperate zeal. As only children can, they question the bloodshed, dread and confusion evident in their broken angelic voices. Feeling the tug of Nero's arm towards the two, I furiously yank his arm back into place. Breaking my grip with an outstretch of his arms, I charge at him, hold arms around him, and lock my fingers behind his back.

'What are you doing?' Tightening my hold, I allow my tears to flow, face buried in the warmth of his chest.

'What are you doing?' I ask, hidden tears disclosed in my voice. 'They're children! Children!' I yell. Firm hands grip my forearms and shatter my hold around the beast. With a push, I'm sent to my back.

'Stay there!' As if held by an invisible force, all resistance against his words collapse.

The spirit pledge.

His words, my law, I'm unable to defy him. That's the price I paid… The price I'm still paying.

'You can't do this!' I yell. 'They're just children.'

'They're in my way', Nero flatly says back.

'How? How are they in your way?' Facing me, a flicker of light blinks inside the black abyss of Nero's eyes. He lowers his sword. I'm getting through to him. I can reach him. I can pull him back.

I can pull him back from whatever ledge he's been hanging from since the day I first met him. He's not a monster; I know that. I've seen that. He's just broken. Slowly, piece by piece, I can fix him, but not if he kills those children. Not if he forsakes his humanity and dives into the pits of darkness.

Joining Nero was my choice. A choice I made to escape the inevitable outcome of my story as it was. Try as I might, there's only so long I could keep myself free. There's only so long I could pay the annual tribute and hold onto what little autonomy I can have as a nameless mortal. So I traded my freedom. Freely, I surrendered my rights to my own self so that I can see the insides of the Towers on my own terms. Not as a disposable resource like my parents. Like my sister, but as the right hand of an Escalade.

A hero.

The heroes I looked up to as a child. The men and women who would dive into the Towers and take from it the food, and materials the people of my village needed to survive. When Nero killed Wolf, when he, a nameless boy untethered to the indifference of the Clan system, showed his power, I knew. I knew he could be that hero. But not if he kills those children.

A hero doesn't kill children.

A glint of light catches my eyes. In a moment, one sickening moment, blood pours from the heads of the two children I was protecting. In each other's arms, they slump to the floor, dead. Bone-chilling Laughter follows.

'Don't you see it now, my sweet boy? That girl's not right for you. Standing between a beast and his prey, not even death is enough of a punishment. Though I suppose given our current restrictions it will have to do.' Sauntering into the gaslit room, the shadow of Huntress eclipses my eyes before the woman herself comes into view.

'How about it, lover? Why don't I save you the trouble and slit that bitch's throat for you? We can drink from her neck together. At least then she'll be good for something.' The madwoman walks over me, knife in hand.

'Don't touch her.'

'Oh? You still want to protect this mortal? That's a shame, a real shame. I did think you had more sense than that.' Stepping one foot over my stomach, the clown-faced demon stoops down until she's resting on top of me.

I strain against her weight and the force that restricts me.

Nothing.

Unable to fight, unable to run, unable to move, I lay pinned by invisible force and certain bloody death. Running the side of her dagger down my face, the crazed bitch puts a finger to her blood-red lips and hisses to me her instruction for me to stay quiet.

'It's all over now', she whispers. She points the knife over my neck and-

Leaping sidewards, Huntress dodges a flash of raging energy.

'I said don't touch her', Nero shouts. 'Rachel, get up.' As if lifting the weight of the world from my chest with his words, instantly I'm able, no, compelled to stand. My body mine again, I run with all the force of surging adrenalin towards the exit.

'I don't think so!' Huntress screams. Throwing her hand forward, a blur of light rockets towards me. With a thud, the weapon rebounds off of a translucent shield in front of me. Taking the opportunity, I refocus my eyes at the door and run.

Bells toll, and voices cry out as I dash across the blood-soaked, body-ridden, hell-scape second floor of the mansion. Laughter tracks my progress.

'Where do you think you're going, mortal? Burning agony tears through my left shoulder as I'm hurled forward onto the ground. Reaching for the source of my torment, I feel the leathery hilt of a dagger, blade piercing through my arm.

'I said don't touch her!' Kneeling, I turn my head to see Nero, sword raised, hurtling towards my huntress. Moving faster than mortal eyes can perceive, the clash of metal striking metal mutes all other sounds. I catch the blur of Nero raising his sword above his head. In that instant, the ground beneath him shatters, sending both Nero and Huntress through the hole of their impact.

'Nero!' Ignoring the pain flaring from my shoulder, I lift myself from the pool of blood surrounding me and hold my wounded arm steady. I dash towards the aperture. Looking through the break, neither Nero nor that creature is seen but the crash of their continued combat makes its way to greet my ears.

Alive.

He's alive.

Turning away from the pit, I make my way across the hall of the mansion and run towards the stairs. Pain shooting through my arm, I stagger. Teeth gritted, fingers squeezing arm, I walk steadily down the steps, stretching my legs over the bodies that stain the azure carpet red.

"There are no heroes, Rachel, and if there are, I'm certainly not one of them."

Like breaking glass, Nero's words draw my mind from the carnage around me to the day I told him everything. How my village was poor, how my parents, unable to pay their tribute, were sold off to the monsters of the Nemo Clan, sent into the Towers to toil under the endless threat of danger. I told him about my sister, and how she too was taken from me. I told him about the stories I had grown up on. The tales of the righteous Escalades, uncaring of status or gain, who would scale the Towers and bring peace and wealth, and hope to the villagers when my parents were young.

I told him of my dream. My dream to scale the floors of the Towers. To see new sights, hear new sounds, meet new people. My dream to stand by the side of a hero and how I thought he could be that hero. He laughed at me. He was right to. Nero XIII is no hero, the trail of corpses in his wake testify to that, but…

He is my master. He is the one that I chose, me! No one forced that choice on me. For once, just once in my life, I made a choice. The choice to follow him. Whether it's to the highest reaches of the heavens or the depths of hell, that is the choice that I made. Even now, surrounded by his madness, I would make that choice again.

He's broken. I can see it in his eyes, violence is all he's ever known. With the threat hanging over us and our roles now with the Black Parade, we will know a lot more violence. Even still, I know I can reach him.

I know he can be my hero.

Chaos erupts around me, tearing me from my thoughts. Pulverised concrete dusts my hair as the wooden ceiling of the ground floor snaps. The walls around me explode in a shower of debris. Tossed once more to the ground, I crawl on my arms and knees, blocking out the pain of my shoulder and make my way towards the exit.

'Well, look what I've found.' Seeing only the polished black shoes of a man, a hand grabs my hair and forces me to my feet. Before me, broad shoulders and a masked face. Not a mask I recognise. Not a mask of the Black Parade.

Turning me over so that his back presses against his chest, the man gropes at me, coursing disgust through my every fibre.

'Isn't this my lucky day? What could a pretty, little, mortal girl like you still be doing here? Not that it matters now anyway.' I struggle against him, he tightens his hold. Twisting the knife embedded in my shoulder, he drives waves of sharp torment through my mind. Legs buckle, and I melt to the floor.

'I don't think anyone would mind if I have a little fun with you before-'

'Stop!' I yell. 'I'm with the Black Parade! I'm with an Escalade!' Scorn or disbelief, I can't tell. His vicious laughter sends bolts of fear through my body.

'It doesn't matter if you were with Ember himself, who exactly are you going run to after I've slit your throat?' Pushing me face-down to the floor, wetness drags itself across the back of my neck, sending shivers down my spine. Tears flow uninhibited as I struggle against the weight pressing me down.

No…

Nero…

'Nero!' Throat raw, I scream his name.

Save me.

Please…

Save me.

Panicked gargles reach my ears as, abruptly, the weight holding me down is removed. Lifting myself to my knees I see the man, translucent appendage wrapped around his throat. Following the source, Nero walks through the doors of this nightmare. His mask once again on his face, he moves towards the choking man. Pausing at me, he crouches down and returns my own mask to my hands. I put it on.

Redirecting his attention to my attacker, Nero pulls the man closer to himself. Attaching another tentacle around the man's waist, he slowly pulls.

The man's face twists in a display of horror as he frantically claws the limb around his neck. Expression frozen in place, his head is rent from the rest of his body, drenching the floor in his noxious life-fluid.

'Get up. It's time to go.' Handing me a red vial, he tells me to drink it. Without another word, he pulls the knife from my shoulder. Preventing me from falling, he holds me up and uncorks the bottle in my hand. Pulling my arms up, he presses the tip of the vial to my lips. I drink.

Warmth spreads through my body and intensifies around my wounds. In a moment of excruciating pain, my injuries ignite. As quickly as it happened, it ends, and I feel strength return to me.

'It's time to go.' Lifting a satchel rested just outside the threshold of what was once a building, Nero guides me through the grounds of the Wyatt stronghold back towards the wall we had breached.

Climbing aboard the coach we had come in, I collapse into the settee. Nero sits next to me. I rest my head on his shoulder.

He doesn't pull away.