#16

#1

Danny didn't expect a lot of weirdness when he started this loop. He was sorely mistaken.

The realization came to him when he realized he had retained the previous loop's features and still looked like a 25-year-old gangster, tattoos and all. Not to mention he was staring down at the tiny version of one Johan Seong.

Taking a deep breath of his cigarette he allowed himself another glance downwards, which he immediately regretted.

"Could you give me your shoes?' Johan looked up at him with his big brown eyes shining with a sort of innocence Daniel had never seen on the boy before.

He exhaled the smoke upwards, as far away from the little one's face as possible, then crouched down and extinguished his cigarette on the pavement while his free hand reached into his jacket pocket. He pulled out a wad of cash that had seemingly traversed back with him and handed it to the wide-eyed boy with the gentlest smile he could manage.

"Take care of yourself" He ruffled little Johan's hair before getting back up and continuing down the sidewalk.

Without hurrying he made his way to a hotpot restaurant, keenly aware of his little shadow. He stopped right in front of it and turned around startling the boy so badly that he instinctively cowered.

"Have you had anything to eat yet?" The man asked, softening his expression so as not to frighten the boy more than he already had.

Johan shook his head and Daniel gestured for him to go in. He marveled at the boy's innocence as his eyes grew larger and he sprinted into the hotpot shop with an expression of childish glee that tugged at the older's heartstrings. This boy had not yet lost the spark in his eyes, though judging by his appearance he had already suffered through the whole cult ordeal.

Daniel chuckled at his enthusiasm and allowed Johan to choose what to order while they sat down next to each other.

"Hey mister, you're really nice!" The boy exclaimed, biting into a piece of meat. "You didn't even kick me when I asked for your shoes and gave me money and everything!"

Danny hummed back while swallowing his own food before wiping a trail of broth off the boy's chin. Johan watched him with keen eyes but didn't lean back or in. It was like the boy was trying to decide whether to be suspicious or revel in this tiny moment of affection that made him feel all fuzzy and warm inside. His mommy used to make him feel like that a long time ago when he was really little but hadn't done so since. Adults only play nice when they want something from you, he reminded himself when the tall dark-haired man retracted his hand and placed the crumbled napkin back on the table before returning to his meal. Something about him made Johan feel safe, something he hadn't felt since they had taken his mommy away, and made him want to cling to him. That's why he had followed him in the first place.

Seeing the boy lost in thought Daniel suppressed a tiny smirk and gently flickered his forehead, only hard enough to wake him from his reverie. He was rewarded with a pout that almost made him coo, but the boy's attention quickly went back to his remaining meal which he once more began to swallow feverishly.

"Slow down." The man chided while handing him a glass of water when Johan accidentally choked.

His actions seemed to have taken a more paternal turn ever since his eyes had landed on the tiny boy, but he didn't really care at the moment. Every bone in his imposing body screamed to take the boy home, wrap him in a blanket and protect him from this cruel world but he suppressed such thoughts. Although his morals had long since been distorted he had yet to completely lose his sense of boundaries. Kidnapping a child wouldn't do, not when he himself seemed to always get into trouble somehow. He didn't even have a place to stay at the moment, so that plan went out the window before it even began.

"Hey, mister", a tiny, high-pitched voice put a stop to his spiraling thought and his tired black eyes clashed with bright brown innocent ones, "what's your name?"

Daniel almost got whiplash with how suddenly his other thoughts paused but didn't show any outward signs of his newfound weakness. The child was making him soft.

"Daniel", he wiped his mouth with a napkin, "and you?"

"I'm Johan!"

His enthusiasm seemed to be infectious because he soon found himself smiling and humming while following along with the small brunette as he chatted about anything and everything. Yep, the child was definitely making him soft. And wasn't that a weirdly welcome surprise?

----------------

In the following days, the two of them kept bumping into each other, and each time they did they ended up back at the same hotpot restaurant.

Daniel had gotten a job at a nearby supermarket that reminded him of his old convenience store, with the added bonus that it paid better and no one dared to look down on him (not that most even could anyway). That way he had the funds to keep taking little Johan to eat at least once a week, although he had yet to find a place for himself. That particular thing wasn't really a problem, since he had long since learned the best sleeping spots in the city during some of his past loops and no one dared to attack him while he slept, out of fear.

In the last loop, Daniel had gotten really jacked up and covered most of his upper body in tattoos symbolizing various things, from his friends to events from other loops and so forth. Unless you really paid attention you probably couldn't tell what they meant, since the man had paid special attention to hiding such details in the very images representing them.

That evening, as he was making his way back from his job Daniel stumbled over a sight that made his blood boil. On the ground was a brunette little lump, covered in blood and bruises, with shards of broken glass and pieces of broken bottles surrounding it. Burying his anger deep in his chest the man stumbled to the child's side, crouching down to take a better look at the damage. No one other than him was around, but it didn't take a genius to figure out what had happened.

With his foot, he nudged away most of the glass before kneeling over the unmoving Johan. He breathed a sigh of relief after finding a pulse, took off his ratty black trench coat, and scooped the bundle up into it. Careful not to hold him too tight and risk making his injuries worse Daniel made his way quickly to one of his nearby hideouts in an old abandoned building. Johan stirred and let out a weak whimper when he bangs climbing the crumbling stairs.

"It's okay, just hang on for a little longer. You'll be okay." He hushed the child suppressing the urge to cuddle him until he felt better no matter how much his chest ached at the notion of having to prolong his pain.

"Just a little longer" He promised the half-conscious boy, finally reaching the floor he had claimed as his own.

Without letting go of Johan he reached underneath an old, rotten dresser and pulled out a backpack that was obviously newer than anything else in this room, though, upon a closer inspection, one could see that it was missing a strap and looked torn in places. Daniel didn't once stop whispering reassurances and praise for how well he was doing as he removed the shard from his skin and bandaged the cuts. While relieved that the boy didn't seem to have any broken bones, he still gritted his teeth while applying cream to the patches of sickening blue and yellow covering his skin and wrapping his wounds.

Once he was finished dressing his wounds he wrapped the boy in one of his jackets and placed him on a relatively clean mattress he had managed to procure from a lovely lady at a yard sale, allowing himself a moment to marvel at how much younger and smaller he looked while sleeping. That night he didn't sleep, instead guarding Johan and making plans on returning the favor tenfold to those who had dared to lay their filthy hands on his kid.

When the first rays of sunlight slipped through the cracked window Johan began to stir. His whole body hurt, but not as much as it had when those guys beat him up. He was on something soft and he cuddled into the warmth before his mind caught up with his awake body. Warmth? He lurched forward in a panic before a pair of big warm hands gently pushed his back.

"Hey, hey, it's okay, you're safe."

He didn't recognize the voice at first but his brain automatically associated it with safety so he relaxed and allowed himself to be pushed back into what he now realized was a jacket almost three times his size in which he had been wrapped in. The pain in his back flared, but he pushed it away in favor of analyzing the room.

It didn't look like anything special. The walls were cracked and the paint had fallen off in some places. He was laying on a mattress that looked like a dog had bitten off one of its corners. Opposite him was an old wooden table with two plastic chairs that didn't belong to the same set on either side of it and next to it was a dresser that looked like it had come straight out of a haunted victorian mansion.

Finally, Johan's eyes landed on the figure at the foot of his bed and a shy smile bloomed on his battered face. Daniel returned it even wider while leaning towards him and placing a calloused palm on his forehead. The action made him fidget, but he soon calmed down when the man took his hand back, seemingly satisfied.

"Where does it hurt?"

The boy's first reaction was to deny that there was anything wrong with him but the look in Danny's eyes made him think otherwise. Timidly he pointed at the parts where he could still feel the pain, watching with bated breath as the man's expression seemed to grow darker and darker.

Finally, he hummed in the way Johan had learned to distinguish as him having gotten what he wanted and let out a deep breath. Although his hand itched for a cigarette, he remained steadfast in his refusal to smoke anywhere near the boy these days. Instead, he forced on a blank expression and began rummaging through the backpack. He pulled out a bottle of water and a store-bought sandwich and handed them to the child after checking the expiration date.

He made sure that the copycat didn't choke while wolfing down the slightly stale sandwich and reflexively wiped the crumbs off his cheeks after he had finished, lamenting at how sunken they were. He resolved to hound the boy to go with him to the hotpot store more often, if only to make sure he ate enough.

"Why?"

"Mhm?"

"Why-Why did you take me to your place? Why did you take care of me and feed me? You haven't asked for anything back? I-I don't have anything to give you! I can't-"

The boy's broken tirade was cut off by a pair of scarred but warm hands circling around his trembling frame and bringing him into someone's chest. The dam broke, and tears began flowing down his pale cheeks like waterfalls. He didn't even know why he was crying, but the building ache in his chest seemed to have finally bubbled to the surface and overwhelmed him. It wasn't fair! Why did this stranger he had met not even a month ago care for him more than his mommy did? Why? Why couldn't he be a normal kid? Why couldn't he go to school, and make friends, and play with toys?

Daniel listened to the little one wrapped in his arms choke on his own sobs and hiccups while mumbling unintelligibly and his heart shattered. The unfairness of it all hit him straight on and at that moment he found that he didn't care if his shirt was wet with tears and snot and bits of saliva, nor did he care that his work would start in half an hour. He could afford to lose his job (even if it would be a rather nasty blow to his income) if it meant that the little boy who was drifting off to sleep on his chest, having already tired himself out crying, wouldn't be alone when he woke up.

No, he thought clutching Johan closer to himself, he wouldn't let him be alone again. He wouldn't abandon him and he would do his darned best so that he would get a normal childhood.

Yakuza FemDanny Loop

Danny: Valentine’s day is just a consumerist holiday that holds no real value other than drive people insane buying heart-shaped chocolates for their significant others and pos- Jay: I wrote you a poem. Danny, already crying: You did?

#7

Daniel wasn't born invincible, although most people wouldn't be able to tell you that. Even in the first loop, he had first crawled through the filth before reaching the top. But it hadn't been enough. This is why, in every loop after that one, for at least a few dozen of them he had approached people like Gun, Goo, and Diego to teach him. Some were harder to convince than others and some would downright refuse to teach him until he found a way to prove to them he was worthy. He had to do things that he didn't dare to remember some days.

He remembered the first time he was made to kill.

His second loop, Gun had been much crueler than he usually was. He made his two masterpieces fight to the death, just for the sake of it. Daniel orphaned a little girl that day. He couldn't bare to look in the mirror for weeks, but he pushed on. He needed to be stronger! So, the boy-turned-killer gritted his teeth and force-fed himself sleeping pills every night.

The second time he killed it came much easier.

Perhaps because he was still reeling from the first one. It was only a few weeks after Eli's blood had covered his hands that another lay before him with his neck broken. It had been so easy it was gut-churning, like breaking a particularly tough twig. He emptied the contents of his stomach in a bush nearby, but couldn't find it in himself to regret it very much. It was horrifying to realize he regretted getting caught and ending up in juvie more than killing Zoe's stalker.

The third time's the charm, right? It wasn't.

That night he stumbled into a bar and drank himself into obliviousness to forget the feeling of a too-small boy beneath the tips of his fingers. He had killed a kid, not much younger than himself, a year at maximum, but a kid! The feeling of bile rising in his throat hadn't left him for the entire loop. When he woke up he was in a cell, with policemen looking down at him with a mix of disgust and horror. They regarded him as a monster, and Daniel deserved it. It didn't take long to get a confession out of him and back to juvie he went. It didn't matter, the phantom touch lingering whenever he clutched his fist was still there.

When the fourth came he still cried.

By the time of the fifth, he lost his appetite completely.

The sixth came with mandatory visits to the therapist's office.

The seventh brought on a new therapist and sturdier cuffs.

It helped, incredibly. There was no more killing in that loop, and the couple that followed.

The eight was accidental, and it left Daniel screaming and crying, and vomiting hysterically. He wasn't locked up for that one, but he somehow found his way back to the therapist's office. The first one he tried had left him with a bitter taste on his tongue. The second one knew exactly which buttons to push. It was a miracle Daniel didn't end up with a ninth corpse to the ever-growing pile attached to his name.

Finally, after a lot of breakdowns and unhelpful psychologists, Danny ended up meeting a nice lady by the name of Robin Lim, who managed, with an amount of ungodly patience and calm, to get through to him. It wasn't a sudden catharsis that left him feeling the office a thousand tons lighter, but it was like the steady flow of a stream, growing quicker and bigger every day until he could finally breathe without feeling like he was choking on air.

Robin remained Daniel's therapist for over eight loops until he finally came to terms with what he had and most likely would again do. He managed to establish a system of what to do when it happened again and how to manage his inner turmoil so that it didn't spill into something dangerous, either for himself or others.

While the looping had the effect of twisting his morals to the extreme sometimes, Daniel was always careful to keep a grip on his emotions and try to use the techniques Robin had taught him to regulate those that could become a threat. It wasn't perfect (the seemingly, only imperfect thing about him now), but it worked and it made him view the world in another light.

It was both surprising and not that he now understood Jinho, to a certain level. He knew what it felt like to be given a ray of light and not manage to cling to it no matter how hard he struggled. He had been pathetic and weak and selfish in a way that made him both better and so much worse than the scrawny boy. Better because he had learned from it and strived to make himself the best possible version despite his worries, insecurities, paranoia, and tilted moral compass. Worse because, unlike Jinho, he had succeeded and killed people to further his own selfish goals.

At the end of the day, the imperfect-perfect boy remained a human, one who struggled and hurt and cried. As long as he kept a tight leash on the part of him that could make others struggle and hurt and cry (and even worse) he kept going, trying to find a way to end the cycle and keep the people he loved safe.

Even if that meant entire loops-worth of counseling and breakdowns, he would do it. For those he cherished? Anything.

Random person in J-High: Hey, Daniel? Can I get some dating advice? Danny: Just because I’m with Jay doesn’t mean I know how I did it.

Polite but feral was the best way to characterize Daniel Park on most days. Today, however, he was just plain flabbergasted. I mean, It's not every day that you wake up back on the day it all started and get to look at yourself in the mirror without being able to recognize your own body. Either of them, actually.

His original body lay on the floor, a soft lump of fat and regrets, while the one he was currently using bore none of the marks that had come from all the fights he had survived. As if the memories written in thin silvery lines across his skin had been washed away by an unforgiving cold wave.

The sink shattered under his tense fingertips but he did not let go of it. Instead, his burning gaze remained fixed onto the mirror as if willing it to admit it was wrong and revert to the reality it had seemingly abandoned in favor of this bitter-sweet illusion. To his dismay, it refused to relinquish the fake image no matter how much he waited. Instead, it was he who first lowered his head onto the cracked remains of his marble sink, stifling a sob as the reality of the matter came crashing down on him like an avalanche.

Denial was over, it came time for anger. But even then, he was much too tired to do anything, nor did he have anything to destroy in sight. At least, nothing he would not regret destroying later. Thus, he settled on clawing at the skin on his back until blood trickled from his nails and down to his elbows. As the blood dripped onto the cold floor below he moved his hands, dragging strips of skin along the entirety of his exposed back. When the pain no longer satisfied him he let his arms fall limply and sunk to his knees, banging his head onto the floor with a muffled thud that left him wondering if anyone was wondering about the noise. His neighbors had been awfully eager to stay out of his way, while expressing their displeasure by loudly banging on the walls in his past- life?

"Take me back."He pleaded into the darkness of his room. "I shouldn't be here."

The moon only stared down at him, cold and unresponsive.

"Please, please"He tried again, though it came out more as a gasp, his chest heavy with sobs he tried to keep at bay.

Failure had never tasted so bitter as when Daniel felt the tin strims of water going down his cheeks. Like a mockery, no matter how much he rubbed at his eyes, the tears never stopped, filling his mouth with the tiny drops of salty water that threatened to drown him. He gasped, clutching his chest as he cried like he hadn't since he was a babe, with tears and hiccups and snot that left him feeling like even more of a pathetic mess than before.

He couldn't tell you how long he laid on the floor, curled with his hands clutching his wildly beating heart and weeping for what was but what could never be again. Sure, he could try to repeat his past experience, sticking as close to the original actions as possible, but it wouldn't be the same. He wasn't the same. Something was fundamentally different about him. Something was broken that last time had been whole. His faith.

Finally, he rose his body and stumbled through washing his face, not quite there. For a second time that night, he rose his face and looked, really looked, at himself in the mirror. He traced unseen scars across his face, trying to commit to memory where each silvery mark and red splotch had been. His body felt so, so awfully wrong. So horribly alien yet familiar to him. Not how it had felt the first time, but similar in a way he couldn't express.

The boy displaced in time could not help but feel as if he had stolen something. Maybe a chance, or a life? It didn't matter.

Acceptance.

He would find his way again, he wasn't lost, merely trying to find his footing again on a path he had taken once already. He could do this.

But not today.

He flopped onto his ratty mattress and cried his heart out until his breathing turned to wheezing and his body felt like turning to mush. Then, he closed his eyes and opened them again, seeing the world from a different angle.

----------

In his last life (it still felt wrong to use the word, but he couldn't find a better way to put it) he had abused his ability to use another body. A body that was attractive and brought his positive attention wherever he went was addictive to him, who had only been even viewed with disgust and contempt by others. He would still use it, of course, but this time he would focus more on the body he had been gifted from mother nature and all of its qualities. Beginning with sewing a few new clothes for his bigger body.

Daniel made quick work of a couple outfits that he felt would suit his bigger body better than his smaller one. His chubby fingers moved swiftly with the needle, although his only source of light was the full moon that was slowly descending out of view and thus, making him have to change his angle several times so as to still keep it in view.

When the sun finally rose off the jagged line of Seoul's horizon he had adopted a calm and collected attitude that he hoped could fool his classmates (no longer his friends) for the day and changed his body. The clothes fit him nicely and although it was still mostly his uniform, with a few pieces changed here and there, like the blue pants that he had swapped out for a pair of black jeans. Adjusting his hair one last time in the mirror he departed, taking the familiar route to school.

He ignored the stares, the whispers, and the ridiculous, over-the-top reactions of the people he passed by, already used to it from the last time. However, he did not miss the hidden eyes of a certain blonde once he entered the class and presented himself (much more casually and without stuttering this time). Nor did he miss the daggers Zack was shooting him for Mira's reaction to his introduction.

When Zoe came and flirted with him he just gave her a small smile while internally cringing. How had he not noticed how bad that line was the first time?

The day passed by in a blur, a few familiar faces here and there, but Daniel was much more focused on that evening and the events to follow. He didn't fall asleep though and thus saved Zoe the embarrassment of being yelled at, not that it changed much of how the girl saw him.

Zack: Well, Mira and I finally did it! The rest of the squad: *gasps, shocked expressions, etc.* Zack: That's right... We kissed!

Sinu: Violence isn't the answer. Sammy: You’re right. Sinu: sighs in relief Sammy: Violence is the question. Sinu: What? Sammy, bolting away: And the answer is yes. Sinu, running after her: NO-

#20

"Jesus..."

"Actually, It's Daniel."

Zack craned his neck to look at the tiny figure sitting atop the - frankly massive - pile of bodies. He had stumbled upon the sight on accident and frozen in shock, mouth agape. If he looked more closely all the bodies seemed to belong to well-built muscly men who, judging by the various bats and DIY weapons strewn on the ground, had been armed. This was no accident, but a coordinated attack that had been thwarted by...by a toddler?

"Uhh..." Zack said, ever so eloquently.

The midget turned around a did a backflip (and almost gave the boxer a heart attack in the process), landing in front of him with a large toothy smile. Now that they were standing next to each other he seemed even smaller, no way older than 5, Zack noted after he stopped gaping. He wore what looked like an old yellow t-shirt with a smiling cat, splatters of blood clear on the thin fabric, and a pair of brown cargo shorts. In the middle of December, at night.

Zack resisted the urge to voice some choice words about the kid's parents as another freezing wind cut through his own thick winter coat. He kneeled to be on eye level with the smiling little menace and extended his hand, deliberately slowly not to spook him.

"I'm Zack."

"Oooh, nice to meet you!" Daniel shook his hand eagerly.

'Yep, his hands are freezing', Zack thought bitterly, looking around for his guardian or someone that could resemble a responsible adult. He found none. The alleyway they were in was pretty out of the way, not a place where a child should be, although... judging by the piled gangsters behind him he could handle himself. A bead of sweat rolled down the boxer's cheek, 'Not even I could beat so many at the same time' and wasn't that saying something? Even after being trained by that monk, Gongseob Ji, there were still people who were stronger than him without even trying.

"Achoo!"

That broke him out of his thoughts, and he wasted no more time in unzipping his coat and scooping the child in his arms, before rezipping the coat with the midget's head poking out. Uncaring of what he must've looked like [*cough* pregnant *cough*] Zack got back up and began walking out of the alleyway.

"We're going to get you something warm to eat and then we can try to figure this whole thing out, mkay?"

The midget nodded his head furiously and gave him another blinding smile before settling on his chest like a happy cat. Neither spoke until they finally found an open convenience store. By the time they got what they wanted to eat and sat down in the little eating area of the shop it had begun snowing heavily. Zack put the kid on one of the stools, with his coat still wrapped around him before opening the two cups of instant noodles and pulling out the little bags of condiments. He kept an eye on Daniel as he moved to pour warm water from the dispenser. To his credit, the little one waited patiently, swinging his legs in the air, his eyes glued on the taller male as he prepared their meal.

"So, where are your folks, midget?" Zack asked as they waited for the noodles, trying to keep his tone light.

In spite of his efforts, the boy curled in on himself, his eyes dimming. 'Sore spot, then' he thought, making a mental note to avoid bringing it up again. He couldn't imagine anyone willingly abandoning this ray of sunlight of a child, so he assumed they must've been dead. 'Yes, that's the only explanation' Zack nodded to himself, before addressing Daniel again.

"Do you have anywhere to go?"

The kid nodded eagerly, but the boxer still had his reservations.

"Let me rephrase that, do you have anywhere to spend the night that you know you can reach and where you won't freeze to death?"

"Uhh."

"Right, so that's a no. Great!" Zack rubbed his forehead tiredly.

He pulled the top packaging off the cups of noodles and broke apart a pair of chopsticks mixing them into the steaming meal before handing it to the midget and doing the same for his own cup.

"Ah, thank you!" Daniel chirped before digging in like a starved child.

'He probably was' he thought bitterly, swallowing a mouthful of noodles. For a few minutes, all you could hear was the sound of them eating, but soon enough the boy pushed away his empty cup. Once more, Zack didn't hesitate or even find it weird how his arms moved on their own to place a small packet of chocolate biscuits in front of the kid's nose.

"Eat up, midget." he encouraged, cringing at how sappy he sounded. "Those aren't going to eat themselves."

'Damn it, why am I acting like this?!' The older boy bemoaned mentally, thankful that none of the people who knew him were here to witness how fucking soft this little menace was making him. After finishing his noodles Zack got up to throw the two cups away when he felt a tug on his sweater. Looking down he found an impossibly large pair of doe-like black eyes gazing uncertainly up at him.

'Ah, my heart!' he mentally clutched his heart which had been pierced by an arrow marked "CUTENESS".

"I'm just going to throw these away!" He quickly reassured the little one, gesturing towards the two empty cups in his hand.

"Are you going to come back?" Daniel asked in a small voice which nearly made the boxer kneel over.

"Of course! Of course! I'll be right back!" Zack assured before nearly sprinting to the trashcan and back, to the bewilderment of the cashier.

"See, right back!"

Daniel hummed happily in agreement with a big smile that made him ponder the benefits of having a pair of sunglasses always on hand. he would probably need a pair if he didn't want to go blind from this unbearably bright ray of sunshine. 'How has no one kidnapped him yet?' Zack wondered, sparking a flame of protectiveness in his chest.

You know how you hear people say that they see something, usually a small child or an animal, and go 'yeah, that's mine now'? That was exactly what happened at that exact moment in Zack The Wimp Lee.

Did it raise questions the next day when he showed up to fight with a toddler on his shoulders? Maybe. Did he care? Absolutely not. He kicked names and took ass looking like an absolute badass and a brilliant model for his new little brother. The highlight of his day was when some random extra tried to hit Daniel as a way of getting back at Zack and got promptly locked through a brick wall by a giggly 5-year-old waving around a purple dinosaur plush in one hand and a blueberry popsicle in the other. The looks on everyone's faces had been enough to make his week.

#18

He had been stupid and careless. Again. Only this time it had been someone else who had paid the price.

Hubris.

Danny thought he was untouchable. It's easy to understand why. He was a man who couldn't die, or more accurately, couldn't stay dead. There was nothing anyone could do to him to make him break, not anymore, not after he had repeated his life so many times he could tell you what would come to be in 30 years spot on.

He acted on impulse, and did things without thinking them through because what's the worse that could happen? Excessive pride had let him to provoking Eugene, using his deepest darkest secrets to threaten him, and for what? Fun?

Daniel tempted fate, forgetting that although he was not bound by it others were. His friends were. His mother was. Jay was. And although he knew that, come the next loop, they would not even recall the horrors they had suffered and their broken bodies would mend themselves as if it had all been a mere dream born of a sickened mind, it didn't mean anything to him in the end.

"No" Had been the first word that slipped past his lips when he lay eyes on the mangled corpse of his beloved.

Daniel swallowed the bile, unconsciously cataloging each injury and automatically knowing how it had been done. He knew how those injuries were done because he himself had both experienced and inflicted them on others. He stumbled, suddenly dizzy and vaguely nauseated.

Burn marks covered his darling's once fair skin, almost entirely covering the other wounds present on his torso. There were bruises. Cuts. Punctures. His face was a pale shade of gray and his lips were swollen. His love's last moments had been spent gasping for air, the torturous end deliberately prolonged for the attacker's sick entertainment. The bastards had FUCKING STRANGLED him, slowly...painfully... (cut off their hands~)

Gently, he caressed Jay's cheek and for a moment wished he could pretend that the blonde was just asleep, waiting for Danny to wake him up by peppering him with kisses. Then he took the body in his arms, carefully holding it as if it were made of glass. He took it-HIM! home and laid him on the bed with his arms crossed over his chest like ancient kings.

The funeral was a messy affair filled with sobbing and streaming and blaming. It wasn't how Jay would've wanted. It was horrible and the boy returned home quietly with a gaping hole in his heart.

It didn't take long for the numbness to fade, washed away by the raging storm of anger.

How dare those filthy maggots lay their disgusting hands on his beloved?!

Red...(More~)

Did they think they would get away with their odious actions?!

Blood...(Yes~)

He would make them pay!

Whose blood...?(More~ More~)

They deserved to suffer for their sins!

There were too many of them to count...(MORE!)

He would not forgive them for this!

It didn't matter anymore...(It didnt~)

THEY WOULD PAY!

...the blood...it didn't matter whose it was...(It didn't matter! Just bring us more!)

...

...

...

The loop reset again...It didn't matter...He would continue his mission regardless...they would pay...in blood...with their lives...again...and again...until he would be satisfied...until they learned...until-

The loop tugged at his soul in warning, coiling its dark tentacles around his neck threateningly. No more! it seemed to hiss in his ear. Enough!

Reluctantly, he obeyed.

Pity! I only got to torture them for a measly 20 loops. Well, it just means I have to get more creative! If physical torture was banned it just meant he had to mess with them in other ways. He already had plenty of ideas. After all, the mind was fun to toy with as well! (yes~)

Danny: Well, well, well… if it isn't my old friend: the dawning realization that I fucked up bad.