𝙈𝙔 𝙉𝘼𝙈𝙀 𝙄𝙎 𝘽𝙍𝙐𝙏𝙐𝙎.

but she forgets how simple and cruel his impulsive conclusions can be. if he cannot have her, then why bother dealing with her ever again?

the sensation of skin splitting open on her cheek is felt before anything else, even before her mind registers the impact of actually being struck. she is instantly knocked to the floor before there is even a feeble hope to stand her ground. the flow of tears which follows is instantaneous, the salty sting of tears flow into the open wound, creating a watery crimson trail. her only consolation to salvage her pride is that aside from a gasp, she lets out no cry. the pain is horrid, but she intends to endure, like always.

except that he isn't quite satisfied with only this. no, now there are claws raking into a fistful of her hair, pulling her so harshly that she has sincere fears that she'll be scalped. that, unfortunately, prompts a pained cry from her that she cannot fight to contain.

「 SILVER CHARIOT 」 manifests beside her, acting on instinct despite her conscious decision to withhold him. the knight begrudgingly heeds her but to a limited degree. yellow eyes beneath the helm direct a furious glare to the other menacing stand, the grip on the rapier is tight, but remains unpointed for now. only because she begs him to withhold.

❝  . . . i'm sorry. ❞ she forces out, and perhaps those words are more painful than all the violence she has just endured. her voice is small and hoarse, pathetic sounding. she despises being reduced to this. but her fear is sincere and so therefore the remorse must seem so as well. she would love nothing more than to continue to scream and curse, to laugh haughtily and choose death. but her son, her poor son, he would be alone and at the mercy of his father. the truth is, her apology is directed to rikiel is nothing else, because either she will die right now or she will be haunted by this risk. ❝  i'm sorry. you are right. i was arrogant and unchecked. ❞

❝  you’re  sorry,  ❞    he  sneers,  cold  and  contemptuous  and  mocking.    ❝  useless  words.  of  course,  under  threats  of  death,  you’re  sorry.  ❞

but, be they tears of genuine remorse or merely a gambit to save her life, her begging works insofar as it assuages his wounded ego. sherry lives, for now, despite her best efforts to ensure otherwise. his iron grip relaxes enough to release her from his grasp, and he watches with disdain as his little knight, so proud even in her imprisonment, collapses into a pathetic heap at his feet.

there is something about seeing her entirely bereft of dignity, so completely and utterly humiliated by his hand, that makes his stomach churn with equal parts repulsion and excitement. he realizes now that he was naive to assume he could toy with her indefinitely. perhaps it was inevitable that her endless well of surprises would run dry, and that her plucky bravery, once so endearing, would become a persistent thorn in his side. that his favorite rose, so beautiful and robust in her prime, would wither and die once picked.

and yet, a withering rose is beautiful in itself, is it not?

cruelty for cruelty’s sake compels DIO to grab sherry once more, this time by her throat. he sinks his claws into her skin and lifts her up, using just enough strength to silence those strangled cries. the temptation to drain her dry and silence her permanently remains ever-present. briefly, he considers the merits of crushing her windpipe, or biting off that bitching tongue. the irony would amuse him temporarily, but alas, he knows better now than to give in to his short-sighted impulses.

instead, he  kisses  her.  there  is  no  illusion  of  tenderness  like  was  feigned  last  night.  no  pretense  of  consideration  for  their  deal,  let  alone  her  pleasure.  his  kiss  is  cruel, it is hungry,  it is razor sharp and painful.  you  are  mine,  he growls into  the  fresh bruises blooming  around  her  mouth;  mine,  sucking  the blood  from  her  brutalized  lips.  mine  to  possess, mine to control, mine to devour to my heart's content. he holds her hostage in this torment until he is satisfied, tossing her aside like one of his dead whores.

all the while, 「 SILVER CHARIOT 」 begs to be allowed to fight. to defend her whilst she still draws breath. to even the odds, to obtain long overdue vengeance. he has lingered with the torture of failure for her fallen brother for years now. now he begs her to not make him endure this twice, to be unable to protect her too. but she refuses him. fighting will only make it worse. it will only come back to haunt rikiel instead.

she is dropped to the floor, she crumbles. a hand is over her chest to still her rapidly beating heart, as if to confirm she still draws breath. and then, in another instant, like whiplash, she is yanked back once more. it's even worse. a clawed hand is at her throat, piercing the pale skin with ease, like tearing through paper. she writhes and gasps, desperate for breath, all the while mentally begging her stand to keep back. little knight, little fool. that is all she is composed of these days. dead dreams of noble heroics and wasted bravery on petty matters.

he kisses her, and she endures, all the while wishing he would have just snapped her neck instead. it is a kiss of barbed wires and poison and seething hatred. there is no charm, no fog of intrigue and pleasure like before. it is vile and suffocating. her limbs are paralyzed, her stomach churning with repulsion, but she does not push him away. she clings to a faded memory where this was once enjoyable to her, in order to stave off the violent desire to shove him off.

and then, it is over. she is tossed aside and she can barely catch herself in the fall. she gasps for air, a hand at her throat where the surface wounds bleed freely. her lips, bruised and swollen, are numb. blood trickles down her chin from where they were split open, the nauseating taste of copper floods her mouth. all she can do is force herself to keep breathing, to be grateful to still draw breath.

「 SILVER CHARIOT 」 continues to silently glare with burning hatred, reluctantly retracting from its fighting stance, choosing to hover delicately over her. it is her protection which matters above all else. even if, had it been his choice, he would have gladly shoved the sharp rapier straight through the smug, insufferable face of 「 THE WORLD 」 instead.

there  was  a  time  not  too  long  ago —  before  their  son,  before  the  joestars,  before  even  the  flesh  bud —  when  sherry  worshipped  him  as  her  lord.  a  time  when  her  heart  sang  with  joy  at  his  touch, whilst  she  willfully  submitted to his  insatiable  appetites.  although  she  was  never  unique  in  that  respect,  being  eager, ready  prey  like  the  rest,  DIO  discerned  a  captivating  spark  which  held  her  firmly  in  his  favor,  a  stubborn  tenacity  begging  his  admiration.  and  for  all  the  trouble  she  has  caused  him  since,  he  still admires  her  resilience.

yes,  even  now,  DIO  makes  no  secret  of  his  latent  fondness  for  his  little  knight.  perhaps  it  was  misguided  sentimentality  which  led  him  to  try  his  luck;  a  moment  of  perverse,  lingering  affection  tempting  them  both  into  mutually  assured  destruction.  he  wonders  if  she  felt  the  same  as  he  when  she  melted  into  his  arms  —  if  she,  like  him,  tasted  remnants  of  passion  in  their  kiss.  perhaps  he  had  fooled  himself  into  believing  that  in  times  of  weakness,  he  could  wear  her  down,  little  by  little,  if  for  nothing  more  than  his  own  morbid  amusement.  to  live  and  die  in  his  gilded  cage  needn’t  be  so  bad,  if  she  would  only  accept  the  small  pleasures  he  so  graciously  offers.

but  of  course,  it’s  just  like  sherry  to  turn  every  attempt  at  reconciliation  into  more  fucking  drama.  he  should  have  expected  nothing  less.

you  and  your  fucking  deal,  he  fumes,  so  preposterous  in  hindsight.  his  frown  deepens  to  the  tune  of  her  vitriolic  tirade.  he  should  have  never  let  her  talk  him  into  this  godforsaken  arrangement.  he  should  have  eradicated  her  and  jotaro  from  the  face  of  the  earth,  and  spared  himself  the  hell  of  this  never-ending  headache.

❝  ungrateful  bitch,  ❞     he  spits,     ❝  you  dare  test  my  mercy? you,  whose  pleas  i  indulged  against  my  better  judgment  —  whose  wretched  life  you  left  at  my  disposal?  ❞

he  strikes  her  hard,  claws  slicing  effortlessly  through  the  delicate  skin  of  her  cheek,  and  notes  with  twisted  satisfaction  how  her  tears  run  red  with  the  blood.  he  hopes  it  hurts  as  much  as  it  looks.  he  hopes  the  wounds  will  never  heal,  and  that  the  ensuing  scars  will  serve  as  a  humiliating  reminder  of  her  boldfaced impudence  until  she  draws  her  final  breath.

「 THE  WORLD  」 appears  beside  its  master,  a  silent  witness  to  his  divine  retribution.  it  towers  over  his  shoulder  like  a  ghostly  specter,  watching  passively  as  DIO  lifts  sherry  by  the  crown  of  her  skull  to  meet  his  furious  glare.  

❝  you  forget  how  feeble  you  are  in  my  grasp.  ❞     he  bends  his  head  to  just  below  her  ear, growling  into  the  crook  of  her  neck,     ❝  i  could  crush  you  like  a  twig  betwixt  my  fingers.  i  could  tear  you  apart  limb  from  limb,  rend  the  flesh  from  your  bones. . . . spill  your  sweet  blood  for  my  thrall  to  lick  from  the  floor.  ❞     it  would  be  so  easy.  a  simple  show  of  strength  is  all  it  would  take  to  end  this  problem  once  and  for  all,  a  solution  that  grows  ever  more  tempting  by  the  second.  his  grip  tightens  in  anticipation. 

but she forgets how simple and cruel his impulsive conclusions can be. if he cannot have her, then why bother dealing with her ever again?

the sensation of skin splitting open on her cheek is felt before anything else, even before her mind registers the impact of actually being struck. she is instantly knocked to the floor before there is even a feeble hope to stand her ground. the flow of tears which follows is instantaneous, the salty sting of tears flow into the open wound, creating a watery crimson trail. her only consolation to salvage her pride is that aside from a gasp, she lets out no cry. the pain is horrid, but she intends to endure, like always.

except that he isn't quite satisfied with only this. no, now there are claws raking into a fistful of her hair, pulling her so harshly that she has sincere fears that she'll be scalped. that, unfortunately, prompts a pained cry from her that she cannot fight to contain.

「 SILVER CHARIOT 」 manifests beside her, acting on instinct despite her conscious decision to withhold him. the knight begrudgingly heeds her but to a limited degree. yellow eyes beneath the helm direct a furious glare to the other menacing stand, the grip on the rapier is tight, but remains unpointed for now. only because she begs him to withhold.

❝  . . . i'm sorry. ❞ she forces out, and perhaps those words are more painful than all the violence she has just endured. her voice is small and hoarse, pathetic sounding. she despises being reduced to this. but her fear is sincere and so therefore the remorse must seem so as well. she would love nothing more than to continue to scream and curse, to laugh haughtily and choose death. but her son, her poor son, he would be alone and at the mercy of his father. the truth is, her apology is directed to rikiel is nothing else, because either she will die right now or she will be haunted by this risk. ❝  i'm sorry. you are right. i was arrogant and unchecked. ❞

Risotto with Metallica ✂️