Soon enough, the five of them found themselves gathered within Klaus's chambers — an elegant privilege reserved only for Noctis's cherished protégé. The room, comfortably adorned with shelves of strange tomes, glimmering soul cores, and the occasional floating candle, exuded a warm, tranquil ambiance. A table had been generously set with food, steam curling from a pot of fragrant tea that smelled faintly of jasmine and charred cinnamon.
Their meal was mostly quiet — not because they lacked conversation, but because none dared breach the looming subject that hung over them like a funeral veil. Important matters were left untouched, buried beneath mouthfuls of warm bread and roasted meat. The laughter, when it came, was forced and fleeting.
After all, speaking openly meant revisiting the Nightmares.
And that meant tearing at wounds that hadn't yet had the decency to scab over.
Each of them, in their own way, carried scars. Not all were visible — most weren't. In truth, not one among them had emerged from the past three months unbroken.
But Klaus? Klaus didn't seem to mind. He devoured his food with the same nonchalance he applied to life — a strange, almost callous detachment. Pain, in his view, was a common currency. He'd long since stopped counting the cost.
So what if you suffered?
So did everyone else.
He once saw a man with one leg mixing cement on a burning rooftop, whistling a funeral hymn while swatting flies from his sweat-drenched brow. If that wasn't hell, then what was?
But Klaus didn't judge them for their silence. He understood. They weren't like him. He had been wandering the Dream Realm since childhood, molded in the crucible of nightmares long before most of them had even touched true horror. His soul had been sanded down by abominations and monsters until nothing surprised him anymore. He had been born in hell. Raised in it. He didn't just survive — he thrived in it. That crucible had sharpened him into something unyielding.
Killing his own father, watching his mother die —Both his birth mother and the one who raised him. Growing up hunted. Pretending not to exist to the very sister he watched over. Schemes, betrayals, rituals carved in blood. And yet, out of all that chaos, Klaus had come out smiling.
A lazy, toothy grin — the kind you wear not because you're unscathed, but because you know screaming won't help either.
To him, life was a cosmic joke. A beautifully orchestrated prank played by the universe on itself. He'd looked too long into the yawning mouth of the Void and seen no gods staring back. No justice. No karma. Just silence. Infinite, blind silence.
The kind of silence that devours galaxies and forgets them in the next breath.
And that's when it hit him — the fundamental absurdity of it all.
Nothing mattered. Not truly. Not in the grand, eternal scheme. The universe didn't flinch when gods perished. It didn't weep when heroes fell. Time marched on, cold and indifferent.
But… so what?
If all was meaningless — then why not create meaning?
If the universe gave him nothing, he'd give something to himself.
That was the heart of Klaus's personality: to stare the Void in the face, see its teeth, its bottomless hunger, and grin back anyway. Not with defiance — but with amusement.
That was why, even though he could have brought Aurora back — could have bound her spirit to him, replicated her personality, mimicked her every breath down to the tiniest flicker of thought — he didn't. Because that wouldn't be her.
It would be a shadow wearing her smile.
And in doing so, he would be mocking her memory. Turning her into a doll, a puppet tied to his soul. Sure, spirits were not slaves, they had memories of their past lives and personalities but they also change because of that transformation. So Aurora would be like Hemera, loyal spirit who worshiped him. It would be comfort… but it would be a lie.
So he had learned to live with loss.
Not because it stopped hurting — but because it always hurts.
Because pain, too, is a kind of proof that something mattered.
So he chose to remember. To be grateful for the fleeting joy he once had. To carry it like a treasure — not a chain.
Yes, life was joke. But that joke was freeing. If nothing matters objectively, then anything can matter subjectively. And Klaus had made his choice:
To smile.
To laugh.
To love what little he could.
And it was Aurora and Nadia — both long gone — who made him promise that, no matter what happened, he'd always smile.
And so he did.
Even if his smile sometimes trembled… even if it hid something broken underneath.
After all, what better way to rebel against the Void than to laugh in its face?
That was the conclusion Klaus had arrived at, after all the madness, after the horror, after the endless spiral of thought and realization.
A simple, resounding: I don't give a fuck.
The five of them had gathered in his chambers, the scent of jasmine tea still hanging in the air. The plates had long been emptied, the comfort of food now fading like the warmth of a dying hearth. They had delayed the inevitable, but the time for aimless chatter had passed.
Klaus sighed and looked around at them — all still hesitant, dancing around the subject like it was a venomous snake.
They didn't want to talk. Of course they didn't. To speak of what they had endured would mean peeling off the bandages too soon, bleeding in front of people who bore the same invisible wounds.
But time was short, and Klaus—being the insensitive bastard he was—decided to break the ice with all the delicacy of a hammer.
"So," he began casually, his voice cutting through the silence like a dull knife, "are we doing a minute of silence for your miserable three months, or are we actually going to talk?"
Sunny frowned, watching him sip tea with clawed fingers, face relaxed as if they weren't on the brink of madness and ruin. His voice came out flat, but with that ever-present undercurrent of spite:
"How are you… I don't know, always like this? Happy? I don't get it. We almost died. And soon — depending on how this goes — we probably will die. So how can you just sit there, grinning like a lunatic?"
Klaus glanced at Lich who sat beside him, nose deep in a heavy tome with the dignified air despite obviously listening.
"Hey, hey! Can I tell him my secret?"
Lich rolled his eyes — or gave the impression of it, at least — and sighed through his teeth, didn't even looking up.
"Do whatever you want. You never listen to me anyway."
Klaus grinned, set his cup down, and leaned forward with a look of mischief and gravity combined — a look that said this will be life-changing and this is utter nonsense all at once.
"Come closer."
The group, intrigued despite themselves, leaned in. Klaus's eyes sparkled with mischief, his expression theatrically serious.
"I'm just… very, very…"
They held their breath.
He snapped his fingers and reclined with a smug smirk.
"…stupid."
There was a beat of stunned silence.
Then, in perfect unison, everyone leaned back with expressions of exhausted resignation. They'd been caught in one of Klaus's little games again.
Cassie chuckled under her breath, but there was unease in her expression. She'd seen the descent happening gradually. He was already mad — always had been — but now, he was liberated. Unshackled. Dangerous in a way that wasn't just reckless, but directionless. He was doing whatever he pleased, whenever he pleased. Whether that was indulging in wine or bloodshed, it made no difference to him. He was like a beast that had chewed through its leash — and now, nothing held him back.
She feared the source of that unrestrained madness. Hope's corruption had rooted deep in him, twisting his thoughts, making the lines between desire and derangement blur.
"So," she finally asked, "what answers are we talking about?"
Sunny grimaced, avoiding Klaus's gaze, and let out a slow breath before speaking.
"...We all know what this Nightmare is about by now. Hope — the Demon of Desire. Noctis plans to rebel against the will of the gods, destroy the other immortals, and break her chains. Our choice is simple, at least on paper: either help him achieve that goal... or stop Hope from escaping."
He paused. His voice dropped a notch, almost trembling.
"The first option is madness. The second is — frankly — impossible. She's already affecting the world from within her prison."
He clenched his fists, voice hollow.
"The immortals… they embody the chains that bind her. And only the Sun God's knives can sever them. We already have two. Noctis knows where the third is. The fourth is with Solvane, and she'll hand it over to anyone who can grant her a worthy death."
He exhaled slowly, shoulders tense.
"So yes… going to war against three ancient Saints is suicidal. But it isn't completely insane. Just... mostly."
Klaus let out a low whistle, pouring bourbon into his teacup and sipping it like a refined nobleman in the midst of a tavern brawl.
"Sounds about right. We need to pick a side — either help Noctis or try stopping something unstoppable. Honestly, I'm leaning toward helping him. He's my teacher, after all. Taught me a lot of fun tricks. So I figure… I owe him."
He smiled wider. His teeth caught the light in a way that was almost predatory. His eyes gleamed with something fierce and hungry.
"And besides... I have goals of my own. If I fight against Noctis, sure — I'll get some juicy rewards from spell. But if I help him… I'll get much more than that."
Sunny's eyes narrowed. He didn't like this. He never liked Klaus. There was something too slick, too unpredictable, too smug about him. Trusting Klaus was like playing chess against a cat—he'd knock over the pieces and piss in the corner, then claim he won.
"And what goals might those be?" he asked sharply.
Klaus took another sip, his tone as light as ever.
"Oh, don't worry. My goals don't involve you lot getting hurt. You've got Kai here — ask him if you want reassurance."
Sunny looked at Kai. The boy nodded silently, but that wasn't enough. Wordplay was a familiar game to Sunny — he played it himself often enough to know it inside and out. Klaus could twist truths into half-lies and dress them up as promises. No, he still didn't trust him.
Sunny clenched his jaw, lips curled into a sneer.
"If you try anything... I swear to every dead god I will tear you apart, piece by piece."
Klaus tilted his head, giving him a slow, pitying look.
"Delusional weakling…"
There was a soft crack as Sunny crushed his cup in a burst of rage and stood, teeth gritted, ready to lunge. But he didn't.
He couldn't.
Klaus. Lich. Miseria — all of them were monsters cloaked in civility. And Sunny, for all his fury, had the survival instincts of a seasoned rat.
He said nothing more, but deep down, he made himself a promise. One day, he would wipe that smug smile off Klaus's face. One day, he'd grow strong enough to tear him to pieces.
And he would enjoy every second of it.