The Sovereign-V5: C6: Cribs of Chains, Lullabies of Needles

The Sovereign-V5: C6: Cribs of Chains, Lullabies of Needles

Across the world from there mothers the twins for six hours, mercy was unconsciousness. In the stark, blood stained silence of the obsidian chamber, Shiro and Kuro slept. It was not a restful sleep, but a total systemic shutdown, the body’s final defence against a reality too horrific to endure while awake.
And in that void, they dreamed.
The dream was a perfect, seamless reality. Shiro was curled against Statera’s side in the sanctum, the pulse of her Polaris light a gentle, steady rhythm against his closed eyelid. He could smell the scent of safety, of soap and warm furs. Her hand was in his hair, stroking with a hypnotic, loving precision. A soft, chiming hum from Lyra wove through the air, a harmonic blanket tucking him in. He felt heavy, warm, and utterly, perfectly safe. It was so real he could feel the ghost of a smile on his lips. This was home. This was forever.
Then, a pressure.
A tiny, focused point of wrongness, a cold pinprick against the warm skin of his temple, just beside the brand. In the dream, Statera’s hand stilled. The gentle light flickered. The pinprick intensified, not as a shock, but as a slow, insistent invasion. It pushed through the dream fabric of his safety, a needle of absolute zero piercing the warmth. The loving touch of his mother twisted, morphing into the cold, clinical grip of a gauntleted hand holding his head fast against the slab.
The dream shattered.
His eyes flew open, not to the soft gloom of the sanctum, but to the sterile, horrifying light of the torture chamber. Akuma’s face filled his vision, his dead galaxy eyes alight with pleasure. The bone needle was already buried to its hilt in the delicate flesh before his ear. The pain, no longer filtered through the dream, exploded into a supernova of focused, burning fire. A scream was torn from him, but it was a scream of dual agony, the physical violation of the needle and the psychic violation of his sanctuary being brutally, intimately defiled.
“Welcome back, little rat,” Akuma purred, his voice the only real thing in a universe that had just proven itself a lie. “Did you have sweet dreams? I thought we could pick up where we left off.”
He began to move the needle. Not deeply, but in a tiny, shallow, scribbling motion just under the skin, as if writing a word with a pen of pure fire. The pain was maddening. It was a scratching, crawling, burning sensation that felt both intimate and insane. Shiro’s breath hitched, a high, reedy whine escaping his lips. He tried to pull his head away, but the chains and Akuma’s grip were an unbreakable law.
“Your mother’s light was a comfort, wasn’t it?” Akuma whispered, his breath a foul heat against Shiro’s cheek. “Her ‘unwavering truth’. Can you feel it now? Is it comforting you?”
Tears streamed from Shiro’s eye, hot and shameful. He shook his head, a tiny, frantic motion. The scratching needle continued its invisible, torturous script, each movement a blasphemy against the memory of his mother’s gentle fingers.
Across the room, Kuro was jolted from his own dream by a similar, precise betrayal. He was in the bathing pool, the hot water leaching the tension from his muscles. Lucifera’s cool, strong hands were on his shoulders, kneading the locked, sore muscles with an unwavering, focused pressure. There was no teasing, no baby talk, just a silent, profound certainty of care. He felt her chin resting on the top of his head, a solid, anchoring weight. “Let it all go,” her dream voice murmured. He had surrendered to it, his body going boneless with trust.
The betrayal came as a sudden, burning intrusion in the soft webbing between his thumb and forefinger. The dream water vanished, replaced by the cold grip of Akuma’s hand forcing his own flat against the obsidian. The comforting pressure of Luci’s chin became the unyielding stone of the slab against the back of his skull. The needle was already deep within him, a slow building wave of fire that felt like the nerve itself was being individually unravelled.
A low, guttural groan was forced from his throat. His body went rigid. His dream of safety was now the wrapping paper on a package of pure agony.
“The Eagle’s Talon,” Akuma mused from his side, his voice a conversational drone beneath the screaming of Kuro’s nerves. “A grip of absolute possession. Let’s see how it holds up to a little… persuasion.”
He rotated the needle, a minuscule, excruciating turn. Kuro’s groan shattered into a sharp, choked cry. The fortress of his defiance, so carefully rebuilt in the false haven of sleep, crumbled at its foundation. This was worse than being awoken. This was being actively, maliciously dragged from heaven into hell by a hook embedded in his very soul.
Akuma withdrew the needle from the space between Kuro’s ribs, watching the prince’s body sag in relief for a single, precious second. He didn’t immediately choose a new location. Instead, he paced slowly between the slabs, the bone probe tapping rhythmically against his palm.
“Tell me,” he said, his tone light, almost curious. “The one called Lyrathiel. The songbird. When she hummed her little tunes, did it make you feel safe? Did you feel… wrapped up in it?”
Shiro flinched, the memory a physical blow.
“It’s a fascinating concept,” Akuma continued, stopping to loom over Shiro. “Using harmonic resonance to soothe. To calm the savage beast.” He leaned down, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “I’ve been experimenting with the opposite. A dissonant frequency, pitched just so. It doesn’t just hurt the ears. It vibrates in the teeth. It makes the fluid in your eyes feel like it’s boiling. It turns the memory of her song into a screaming feedback loop inside your skull.”
He straightened up, smiling at the horror on Shiro’s face. “Would you like to hear it? I’ve been composing it just for you. I call it ‘The Cacophony of a Broken Nest’.”
“Stop,” Kuro rasped, his voice raw. “Just… stop fucking talking.”
“Ohhh but the conversation is the best part,” Akuma chided gently. “It’s what separates us from the beasts. It’s what separates me from you.” He turned his gaze to Kuro. “And you, the strategist. The logical one. Did you feel smart when the Sirius Councillor praised your ‘precise mind’? Did you feel like you were solving the universe’s great equations?”
He didn’t wait for an answer. “There is no equation for this. There is no strategy. This…” he gestured around the chamber with the probe, “…this is the base reality. Pain. Fear. The wet, red truth underneath all your pretty philosophies. Your Luci taught you to analyse. I am teaching you to feel. And all you feel is me.”
He then moved with sudden, brutal speed, not with the needle, but with his hand, gripping Kuro’s broken leg. The pressure was expert, agonizing, precisely on the shattered bone. Kuro’s scream was instantaneous, a short, sharp burst of absolute agony.
“See?” Akuma said softly, not releasing the pressure. “No analysis. No logic. Just a scream. It’s so much more honest, don’t you think? It’s the purest thing you’ve ever produced.”
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Akuma worked on them for hours, a vile midwife birthing new levels of suffering within them. Each new insertion, behind a knee, arch of a foot, the dip of a collarbone, was preceded by a fleeting, ghostly sensation of comfort: the weight of a blanket, the taste of dessert, the sound of a lullaby, all violently punctured by the needle’s cold kiss. He was not just hurting their bodies; he was systemically poisoning their memories, turning every cherished moment into a prelude to pain.
Their screams were different now. They were laced with a new, devastating note: the sound of betrayed trust. The hope that had flickered during the six hour rest, the fragile belief that their minds, at least, were their own, was being meticulously extracted. They were learning that there was no sanctuary, not even in sleep. There was only the needle, the slab, and the smiling face of the man who was teaching them that every memory of love was just another place he could hurt them.
The final needle was withdrawn from the soft skin of Shiro’s inner arm. The twelve hour symphony of meticulously orchestrated agony had reached its concluding movement, leaving behind only the trembling aftermath, the ragged, syncopated rhythm of their breathing, and the cold sweat drying on their skin. Akuma stood back, surveying his work with the satisfied air of a sculptor contemplating a finished piece. He carefully cleaned the bone needle with a soft cloth, his movements slow and ritualistic.
He did not summon Aki immediately. Instead, he looked between the two broken forms on the slabs, a strange, paternal softness in his brutal features that was more terrifying than any snarl.
“You know,” he began, his voice conversational, almost warm, “in a way, we are a family now. A complete little unit.”
He gestured to himself. “I am the father, of course. The disciplinarian. The one who guides you, shapes you, even if the lessons are… harsh.” He then pointed a thumb towards the door, where Aki would soon appear. “And Aki. She is the mother. Nurturing. Healing. Putting you back together after a long, hard day.” His dead galaxy eyes settled on them, and his lips stretched into a wide, horrific smile. “And you two? You are our children. Our precious, unruly infants who require constant correction and care. We feed you. We clothe you in your own pain. We put you to bed and we wake you up. We are your entire world.”
Kuro, through the haze of pain, let out a weak, scoffing breath. It was all he could muster.
“You… you’re fucking insane,” Shiro whispered, the words slurred with exhaustion.
“Am I?” Akuma asked, tilting his head. “Is this not what family is? A closed system? A self perpetuating cycle? Your previous mothers coddled you. They filled your heads with pretty lies about stars and songs. We are simply giving you a more… honest upbringing. One built on fundamental truths. Pain. Healing. And obedience.”
He walked over to Kuro’s slab and leaned down, his voice dropping to a confidential murmur. “The father teaches the son his place in the world.” He then moved to Shiro. “The mother mends the damage so the lessons can continue.” He straightened up, his smile benevolent and monstrous. “It’s really quite beautiful in its purity. You will learn to appreciate it. In time, you may even come to love us, as all children eventually learn to love the hand that shapes them.”
He gave a soft, almost gentle sigh. “Now, call your mother. It’s time for her to make you all better. We have a big day again tomorrow. Can’t have our children starting their lessons all tired and broken, now can we?”
He turned and tapped the wall, the signal for Aki to enter. The twins were left with his words slithering through their minds, a new and insidious poison that reframed their endless hell as a perverted form of domesticity, making the prospect of rescue feel not just distant, but somehow… disloyal.
Aki shuffled in, her gaze vacant, her movements automated. She healed Kuro first. The familiar, sickly green gold light enveloped him, the sensation of his nerves being violently, wrongly reassembled a fresh torture. As she turned to Shiro, he found a last reservoir of strength.
“Aki,” he begged, his voice a raw whisper. “Aki, please. It’s me. It’s Shiro. Remember the shack behind the forge? Remember the song you used to hum? The one about the lonely star? Aki, please!”
He might as well have been speaking to a wall. Her hands, the hands that had once held his, now laid upon his chest, and the invasive healing light surged into him, stitching his frayed nerves back together with indifferent agony. There was not a flicker in her dead eyes. She was a shell. Akuma’s perfect, broken plaything.
Once they were whole, Akuma had the bowls of stew brought back. They ate, not tasting it, the food just another part of the horrific cycle. As they finished, Akuma stood, stretching like a satisfied cat.
“Get some rest,” he said, his tone light, almost friendly. “The next six hours are yours. And then… we begin again. I’ve so many more ideas. We’ve only just started to explore the symphony of your suffering. And remember… you have six days till your mind breaks. I intend to make each one a masterpiece in breaking you my sons.”
He left them chained in the silence, the echoes of his words and the phantom pains in their healed nerves a promise of the hell that was yet to come. The comfort of their dreams was now a poisoned well, and the memory of their mothers’ love felt like the sharpest knife of all.
The silence after the door sealed was a different entity than before. It was heavy with the echoes of Akuma’s words, with the phantom pains of the needles, and the profound violation of the healing. They lay in the dark, the only light the faint, sickly glow from the seams of the door. The pretence of strength was gone, eroded by twelve hours of meticulous dismantling.
“He… he talked about Lyra’s song,” Shiro whispered into the gloom, his voice thick and wet. The sound was small, a child’s confession in the dark. “He wants to ruin it. He wants to take her song and make it a weapon.”
A ragged sob escaped him, then another, until his body was shaking with the force of it. He cried not just from the pain, but from the loss. The loss of safety, of comfort, of the simple, profound peace of being sung to sleep. “I miss them, Kuro. I miss tera’s light. I miss the way Nyxies laugh felt. I just… I want to go home. I want...”
The memory of it was a physical ache, a hollowed out space more painful than any wound Akuma could inflict. Shiro thought of the spoon fed porridge, the blushing humiliation of being carried everywhere, the relentless, smothering baby talk that had once felt like a chain. He remembered the threat of the high chairs, the ultimate symbol of their helplessness. Now, he would have given anything, his other eye, his very soul, to be strapped into one of those padded monstrosities, to see Lucci’s smirk as she locked the tray, to hear Nyxies gleeful coos. It would have meant he was theirs. It would have meant he was safe.
“I hated it,” Shiro sobbed, the confession torn from him. “I hated the hand holding… I hated when they called me their ‘wittle Rain Baby’… I fought it so hard.” He choked on a gasp. “But I’d let them… I’d let them do all of it and more. I’d beg for it. I’d be the most helpless, pampered infant in the whole cosmos if it just meant… if it meant Statera was brushing my hair again. If Lyra was humming.”
Kuro, listening, felt the same devastating truth crack open inside him. The strategic part of his mind, which had always calculated the debt of their care, now presented a new, horrifying equation: the humiliation was the price, and the safety was the reward. And it was a price he would pay a thousand times over. He would surrender all pride, all dignity, all semblance of adulthood. He would lean into Lucifera’s chest and call her ‘Mommy’ without a trace of irony if it meant her cool, precise hands were the ones touching him, and not Akuma’s.
“They could treat me like a newborn,” Kuro whispered, the admission a defeat more total than any he had ever known on a battlefield. “They could put me in a crib. I wouldn’t care. I just want to hear her voice. I just want to be home.”
“They’ll find us,” Kuro said, his own voice hoarse and unconvincing. The words were a reflex, a mantra he had to believe. “They’re… they’re coming. Luci… she’ll tear this place apart. Nyxie… she’ll burn the stars themselves…” He was trying to build a wall of conviction, to be the strong one, but the mortar was gone.
His voice hitched. He tried to swallow the emotion, to force it down, but it was a tide too strong. The image of Lucifera’s face, not the sharp councillor, but the soft, tearful “Mommy Luci” who had held him after his first successful Talon’s Grip, flashed behind his eyes. The memory of that specific, unwavering love, now felt a million light years away.
A hot, traitorous tear welled in his eyes and spilled over, tracing a path through the grime on his cheek. Then another. He turned his head away from Shiro, a futile gesture of pride in the utter darkness.
“They have to,” he whispered, the words dissolving into a choked, quiet sob that shook his own broken frame. “They have to…”
The two brothers, heirs to stars and survivors of streets, did not speak again. They lay chained in the dark, and together, in silence, they wept. It was not the roaring despair of fresh pain, but the quiet, hopeless sound of a hope that was breaking, its back bent under an unbearable weight, not yet snapped, but groaning under the strain of an eternity that had only just begun.

V5: C6: Cribs of Chains, Lullabies of Needles