i will remain at the apex

It was oh, so cold.  Fate’s icy hands wrapped around his neck, choking him out until black spots appeared in his vision.  Water flooded into his lungs, and he could barely even think before he was gasping for air.  He was drowning - a familiar feeling, to him, for he had done so countless times before.

He dies, again, and wakes up, again.

This time he’s lying in the streets of Italy - he would always recognise his home.  Bruises litter his body, and as he curls up in himself he curses those walking by him, those weaklings who wouldn’t spare him another thought.  It was always the same - it made him wonder if this was a side effect of Requiem, the total lack of sympathy for the Devil.  Or, perhaps, this was just some sort of sick karma.  

He would have spat on the ground if he wasn’t so certain he would cough up blood in a shameful display of weakness, so instead he clenched his fists.  But he won’t cry.  He’d sooner face Giorno Giovanna again than cry.

“Who did this to you?”

The question freezes him cold.  Not the question itself - though, it was an excellent question, and if he could somehow manipulate someone to take revenge on Giovanna, that would be excellent - but the fact that some had noticed him.  After hundreds of deaths, for the first time, he was noticed by someone.

But he was still Diavolo, and he was not someone to be pitied.  His pride got in the way of his mouth.

“And who’s business is it?” he snaps. “Fuck off.”

🌧- For a heavy, emotional secret

He doesn’t answer.  It’s silent, for a while, the ticking of the clock the only sound to be heard in that tower.  Long robes drape over his body, covering up his bare skin as he looks out the window - to the sun.  

How long has it been since he went out in the sun?  At least, in this form?  It must have been a while, he assumed, since he last tasted her sweet nectar.  In any case, his mind drifts back to that question.

Does the devil cry?

‘No,’ he wants to snap back, and leave it at that.  But there’s something that compels him to answer truthfully - and by God, does he want to murder that part of him.  To wring its little neck for showing such weakness.  Instead, he sighs.

“There was a woman, long ago.” Stop it.  Stop, you fool, before you reveal your weakness. “Her name was - it’s not important.”

But it was, it was the most important name in the world.

“She was the light of my life.  Like the sun setting over the horizon, reflecting on the still waters of a river - about to be hidden by a mountain.  My own Regina.” Even now, his nickname for her rolls so naturally off his tongue. “I’d dance with her until the world ends.”

He blinks back tears.

“And it did.”

“ Heh. I, Dio, don’t have anything to asks for now. And yet, all the questions already answered except one thing… ” He paused, with his smirk went down, the big guy asks in serious tones. 

“ Could you tell I, Dio, who you’re..? ”

His heart seemed to stop for a moment - he knew that the question would inevitably come, but even so he couldn’t stop his paranoia from seeping in.

“You may call me ‘Boss’.  That’s what all members of the gang refer me as.” He paused, in thought. “I am a man who has been chosen by fate.”

He let out a low laughs with a wide smirk as he was being over modest towards the other. Dio couldn’t help himself from being like that after all. The blonde guy stopped the laughs to hear the other talks about him again. kinda, impressive of how well he did. 

“ Hmm, I see… I, Dio, shall joined into your group then! ”

The nagging in the back of his head was telling him, screaming at him that something was off.  But Diavolo knew better than to question fate - Fate, which had taken him this far, which led Dio straight to him.  Clearly, this was another gift from Fate.

So he ignored the voice in his mind, instead opting to give Dio a half-smirk before settling back on his stoic gaze, keeping up his appearance as a fearsome mafia boss.