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Chapter Text

With gentle precision, his scalpel cut through the skin of a body that, just a few hours ago, had been alive. He was not so much interested in the history of the ‘patient’ in front of him as in his medical information, organ readings, tests, and confirmation that this person's organs were safe and suitable for transplantation. Especially the heart.

And now, after such a long time, another ideal donor has been found. A donor who had not even given his consent to donate his heart. To put it mildly, avoiding the whole truth, negotiations, threats, a gun to his family's head, the man was forced to go to certain death, but for a greater cause. Only this cause was not beneficial to him, unfortunately.

The surgeon's hands moved mechanically, without a single mistake, as if he thought the man on his table was still alive. Why then bother with dead flesh? The answer, except for a quiet, almost whispered,

‘We must at least treat the man with respect now. After all, he did not consent to this.’

 It was his personal principle, almost the only thing left after his past life, the remnants of humanity that he wanted to preserve. In a brief moment green eyes found a photo on the wall, a young girl in uniform smiled at him, brighter than the winter sun reflecting off the pure white snow, without a hint of even one sin against humanity. Her eyes shone like stars in the sky after they died, exploding in the darkness of the night. 

Surely, she didn't want him to be like that, didn't want him to slip into the darkness again, as he always did, as soon as his consciousness sensed the danger he could pose to someone dear to him.

‘If not for myself, then for her,’ he repeated to himself every time.

Now he had reached the heart, his gloved fingers touching the organ before trembling. Zayne hesitated for a moment, for the first time, probably, in all this time. For the second time in five years, they were so close to their goal, but finding the perfect heart was quite difficult in these difficult times. The chances that everything would not go according to plan, just like last time, were high, so all that remained was to hope for a little luck and confidence in Zayne's skills.

‘Pull yourself together, doctor,’ a low baritone voice echoed coldly through the room. ‘It's not every day you get gifts like this from me. It would be a shame if we missed this opportunity because of you, wouldn't it?’

Zayne could hear the sincere mockery, the dead eyes that looked straight into his head, reading his anxious thoughts from afar. With a loud hum, the man approached him from behind, closing in on him like a predator on its prey, only to intimidate, not to kill. But you can't scare the surgeon himself with that, he quickly gets used to new conditions.

‘I'm not used to you underestimating me,’ Zane exhaled, turning back to the dead body and his operation. His interlocutor's rich, loud laughter in response finally stopped his fingers from trembling, and his thoughts focused on one thing. ‘Come to check on me? I rarely see you here.’

‘Hey, hey, aren't you glad to see me?’ The man's voice dropped a few dangerously mocking octaves, turning almost into a warning, laced with a false hint of friendliness. His heavy hand squeezed the surgeon's shoulder, holding the man in place, although Zayne had no intention of running away. Not with his heart in his hands, not with his future and, in principle, with his life, in Sylus's strong grip.

"Listen, you're getting in my way a little. If you want to chat, it's not with me, Sylus, you know that very well.‘ Zayne exhaled heavily as his eyes met the two brightest rubies. ’Definitely not now, definitely not at this moment. Come back later."

Loud laughter echoed again in the cold room, the so-called operating theatre. Sylus stopped in front of the operating table, looking down at the open human body. Only his lips twitched, about to say something sarcastic again, when a loud explosion rang out nearby, the walls shook, and the surface ceased to be perfectly stable.

Wanderers and Caleb. Again.

Zayne's hand trembled, and the scalpel cut the heart in half.

‘Damn it!’ Zayne growled, throwing the scalpel at the wall in despair. Once again, they had failed, and everything had been done only to return to the very beginning.

Not only were they left without the perfect heart, but two bodies were brought into the operating room: one half-alive, the other under the total control of drugs. 

‘Zayne, my friend!’ the drug addict roars, choking back tears of euphoria. ‘Our Caleb has miscalculated the force of the explosion again! Again! I'm tired of dragging him along again and again, so tired! Just save him already!’

Chapter Text

After the explosion, his head felt either too light or too heavy, he couldn't decide which. His ears were ringing, the sound filling his subconscious and leaving him almost disoriented.

All he remembered was the automatic doors of the building, the sharp increase in the Metalflux level, the growling of the vile creatures, the sight of their claws and bared teeth. And then his hand found the weapon in his pockets, his fingers clenched the pistol triggers, killing each devil one by one: whoever fell under his hot hand died on the spot.

The downside of this situation was the number of monsters per person, their diversity and bloodlust, which grew exponentially with each passing day, becoming stronger and stronger, just by looking at you: you already feel the pain of your skin being torn by them, the scream of pain in your throat torn by their teeth, the taste of your blood on their lips, the whisper of broken bones.

Did it scare him? No. Did he want to be killed? No.

Instead of pistols, his hand found a long-forgotten grenade, as if it had not even passed the tests of the master who designed it. Did Caleb care about this? A little. Does he want to survive? It would be nice if he did. But if he doesn't survive, it will be more of a problem for those around him than for him.

And then everything is as if in a fog.

His fingers pulled the pin, his hand threw the grenade, there was an explosion, the shockwave threw him back, his body ached, and then darkness.

His last thought was, ‘Did it work?’

And the first thing Caleb saw when he came to was the face of his... friend, so to speak, if he wanted to hiss the word through clenched teeth. Zayne's eyes were focused on his face, watching his every reaction, unfortunately not for the first time as a ‘patient.’ The doctor hated how reckless and imprudent Caleb could be, working according to the tactic of ‘first do, then maybe, and not necessarily, think about your actions’.

When their eyes met, a sigh of brief relief escaped Zayne's lips; inside, the man was glad that his... friend had come to his senses, and he would no longer have to worry.

‘Caleb, can you hear me? Look at my finger and don't look away,’ Zayne's voice, as always, quiet and calm, rang through Caleb's ears. The Colonel himself did not have the strength to argue, except to watch the doctor's finger.

Unfortunately, Caleb heard not only Zayne, but also Rafayel, crying crocodile tears on the shoulder of poor, about to snap Sylus. Bastard, under the influence of drugs, which ones exactly remains a mystery, because the artist did not adhere to any particular pattern of substance use, muttered that Caleb was heavy, that it was difficult for Rafayel to carry him, that he did not deserve such torment, warned, although it was more of a threat, that next time he would not save the crazy Colonel from the clutches of death.

"Sylus, why do I always have to bring him back?! I hate him! Because of him, all my clothes and hands are covered in blood! I had just found inspiration for myself when this creature decided to blow himself and the Wanderers up! Tell him that's enough!" the man choked out in tears, his words already difficult to distinguish through the mixture of all the shit he had pumped himself full of.

And Sylus... he was silent. He was probably used to it. Or maybe he was thinking through all the possible ways to kill this ugly rotten fish.

But that wasn't the point right now.

It took time for Zayne to finish treating Caleb's wounds, tying the knots of the stitches that had to be applied to the man's already tortured skin, distracting himself from the thought that once again they had failed to give her the heart that was literally in his hands. And, of course, to calm down the God of Hysteria and Drama, Rafayel. Not with words, but with sedatives, which were always in Zayne and Sylus' pockets. The twins got rid of the unconscious body, laughing to themselves at the drug addict’s slowly subsiding hysteria.

‘I'm sorry,’ Caleb whispered as he began to understand the whole situation. ‘I didn't know you were about to cut out the heart.’

‘Shut up,’ Zayne spat harshly, his voice icy, all concern for Caleb gone in a split second. ‘If you want to make amends, help Sylus get rid of the traces and find a new person. And, preferably, stop risking your life where it's not necessary. If you want to blow something up, ask your superiors for a proper weapon, don't steal a test version from Sylus. He's not as stupid as you think.’

On the one hand, Caleb was annoyed and pissed off by this side of Zayne. Too confident, critical, and most importantly, truthful. He knows how to arrange facts neatly, without sorting words, though. He was a completely different person; one she probably wouldn't recognise if she were here. She might be surprised by his coldness and detachment from the man who melted at her glance, gave her the warmest smile, and whose eyes burned with love when he looked at her. Perhaps she would be frightened by Zayne's rudeness, how his words could pierce her heart, because he had long since stopped choosing them carefully. He had changed, all of them had.

Caleb too.

Once her best friend, her support, her protection, her source of unconditional love, died; along with his old personality, he took their ‘grandmother’ to the other world, giving birth to a new personality: the ruthless Colonel, controlled by a chip in his head and with an iron fist as a gift. And as an addition to the whole package: the loss of almost all memories, pain for breakfast, lunch and for dinner, with also coldness comparable to the coldness of Zayne's black ice.

Time has passed. And now he is just the Colonel, with emptiness in his chest, pain worse than physical, but without the influence of the chip and with all the memories that did not make the situation better at all, only worsened it, bringing even more suffering to his existence. A possible, perhaps, ‘thank you’ should be said to Sylus and Xavier. It was their doing: reprogramming the chip and improving his prosthesis helped. Perhaps Zayne should also be thanked, because he was the one who understood and understands his health. And Rafayel is a good listener. When he's not high.

They all had to unite, as they shared a common goal.

About five years ago, EVER's experiments on people with protocore syndrome turned into a literal human farm, a veritable hell on earth. At first, everything was disguised as an innovative treatment programme. According to their personal sources and examination results, there were patients who had been cured of their illness, looking into the camera with sincere, warm, happy, forced, painful, dead smiles. The website was saturated with promises of a better life and offers of great rewards. All they had to do was sign a contract that allowed them to do whatever they wanted with the patient's body, quoting:

"By signing this contract, the patient grants us the right to perform all procedures, operations, drug testing, and experimental treatment methods on his/her body if the doctor responsible for the treatment of this person deems it necessary. EVER will not be held responsible if the treatment chosen by the doctor has a negative effect on the patient's health, including death, as each method is selected individually for each person and there is no guarantee that the treatment will have positive results for a specific patient."

In short, people gave their lives in the hope of ending their suffering, to gain a little time for life, children, love, dreams, and careers, which they had spent on survival. In fact, they received even greater torment, unrelenting pain, broken psyche, and in the end, they ceased to be human beings altogether. Their bodies mutated, changed in real time, turning into Wanderers. Those whom the Hunters Association used to protect from. The truth is that this was in the past. It used to protect them. Now it doesn't.

So when the moment came that what was once ‘the place of promised chance for a new life’ turned into a place for creating new Wanderers, their new species and testing their abilities got out of control, the farm of killers could not withstand the power of its creations, certainly not humans, but bloodthirsty monsters, in unseen numbers, flooded first the quiet forests, then the fields, going further and further, destroying everything in their path, regardless of whether it was villages, small towns or cities with millions of inhabitants, like Linkon. Recently, there was even an anniversary of when the artificially created Wanderers destroyed two-thirds of the metropolis.

And now they were everywhere. They even reached N109 Zone.

And most importantly, she fell victim to the attack. As always, this girl wanted to save everyone, but no one saved her; the first waves of the attack were truly brutal.

The monsters' thirst was still fresh, unquenchable, insatiable. So, they killed everyone: children, women, animals, destroyed plants, wiped out all possible life from the earth, and brought chaos. The Association lost 85% of its Hunters, 5% were seriously wounded and will be bedridden forever, whether they managed to hide from death and for how long, the other 10% are missing. She was in the 10%.

But only in the reports.

At least five people knew where she was.

At least five people were able to snatch her from the jaws of fate, which was already chewing on her mangled body, and the tongue found her heart when its heartbeat reached the end of her story.

At least five people went against the whole world to save her. Regardless of morality. The main goal.

Yet there was little time.

Chapter Text

hi there, lil sigmas! it's me, mavka. so... ummmmm... I AM SO SORRY FOR DISAPPEARING SHAME TO ME. i wasn't in really good state last months + i've started my uni year and now also i'm not unemployed, so.... yes. i'm still here and this fic is going to be continued, i'm already writing a new chapter (it's ghoing to be about our lil silly fishie). i hope some of you are still there and would still read my crazy ahh shit, because my fatass thinking about startinf a new fic lads x demon slayer with sylus and mc (i hpo you'll love it)

thanks for all of yours attention, i would love to hear yor feedback about this fic (previous two chapters) and maybe some suggestions. love yall, mavka's out!