(A/N: Okay rapid-fire disclaimers real quick

-I binged all of Doki Doki Glitter Force because I lost a bet

-I never expected to get attached to these characters

-I DID NOT REALIZE THE ENGLISH DUB WAS ALSO HYPER-ABRIDGED FROM THE ORIGINAL

-I will be watching the sub soon and will then republish this fic with the Japanese names

-Edit: I have started watching the sub and... will probably not be republishing this fic

-I wanted to post before I watched the sub in case the sub disproves any of the lore I came up with for this fic

-PLEASE NO IRA/JONATHAN SHIPPING THANK U

That's all, I hope you enjoy!)

"Out of my way!" "There's a big clan catching up, I have to run!" "I'm not leaving y— OW!"

Children scream. The skies fill with black clouds. Other children swoop up to touch them and then scream as their playmates knock them out of the sky. Their screams turn into more clouds.

"Let go, what are you doing—?" "What's it look like I'm doing?! I don't wanna die!"

A young girl sinks her teeth into an even younger boy's leg. He shrieks in agony as a black mist is absorbed into her fangs.

"I don't wanna die, either! You promised! You promised!"

He's begging her. She ignores him. Her childish tears will dry, eventually. They'll have to. Her raven-black hair grows blacker as she sinks her fangs deeper.

"Hey, kid. Knock it off."

A low, gruff voice startles the girl. She pulls back and looks at the shadow towering above her. It's an adult. She screams and scampers off across the charred hill, looking for an easier, non-guarded target to attack.

"Y-y-you saved me—" "And now, you're in my debt. Get a move on. This way."

The boy follows the man. They've never met, but they have matching color schemes. They're part of the same clan. In fact, in just a moment, they will be part of the last clan. Faint voices shout behind them.

"What is that thing?" "IT'S A BOMB!" "HOW DID SOMEONE—" "GET OUT OF MY WAY—!"

An explosion blurs out the rest of the shouts.

The boy looks back for one last time at the remnants of his home. His planet. His people.

The man grabs a fistful of darkness out of the air and snaps his fingers. He never looks back.

Ira sat up in a hot sweat. He hated it when that happened. He needed a way to clear his head.

Taking a deep breath, he raised his fingers for a teleporting snap— then paused. He usually went to fly over the ocean when he was feeling stressed: the city lights that reflected on the turbulent waters against the dark night sky had always been a relaxing backdrop for venting his feelings. But the last time he had done that…

Lightning strikes. A boy screams in pain as he falls into the waters below. Then there's kindness, gentleness, a pretty girl with shiny black hair.

No, he definitely didn't want a repeat of that ordeal. He needed somewhere new to go. Somewhere fresh, with no memories. Maybe somewhere with a dark heartbeat… he was hungry, but more than that, he was bored. And a Distain wrecking havoc never failed to cheer him up. (Well, except when they got defeated by the Glitter Force. Those darned sparkly brats…)

It was decided, then. The small wings behind his ears stretched out as he closed his eyes in concentration, awaiting the familiar rhythm of a dark heartbeat. The wings pricked up as a faint sound grew stronger.

"Only a dimension away?" Ira commented to no one in particular. "It's my lucky day. Or night, as the case may be."

Then he snapped his fingers, leaving nothing but an empty park bench and a tattered blanket behind.

A stack of papers that had been a mile high only moments before was strewn across the desk. In fact, the entire room was cluttered with documents, files, and various knick-knacks with the price tags still on. And over it all, a pink-haired baby flew, laughing her adorable trademark laugh as the wind created from her wings sent the untidy room spiraling further out of control.

"Oh, no…"

Jonathan stepped into the room and immediately tensed up. His gaze moved rigidly from the papers, to the baby, to the spilled bottle of ink on his desk. It's covered up what used to be a shiny golden button.

"I leave the room for one minute…"

A woman with a waterfall of long pink hair strolls into the room. A blond man with a bird on his finger is awaiting her at the other side.

"I leave the room for one minute, and you've messed up your outfit already," she teases. The man laughs.

"What? What did I do this time?"

"You unbuttoned the very top button," she points out with a smile. "Unforgivable."

"It was hot! Isn't that what buttons are for? To keep you warm when it's cold and cold when it's hot?"

"Not quite, when the top button is symbolic of the royal family," the woman replies with a smirk.

The man smiles and shakes his head. "I can never tell when you're joking with me, Princess."

"Please. How long are you going to call me 'Princess?' Is that any way to address your fiancée?" She winks, causing a blush to rise to the other party's cheeks.

"W-Well, what am I supposed to call you? I can't very well address you by just your name in front of your father. We aren't married yet. And 'Princess Marie-Angelica' is a bit of a mouthful when I'm trying to reprimand you."

"Then how about just, 'my love?'" the woman replies, a blush of her own coming on.

"My love…" The man gazes into the woman's eyes before he quickly averts them. "Yeah. Yeah, I suppose that'll do."

"Di-na?" The baby looked up innocently at her surrogate father. She grinned, oblivious to the shadow passing over his eyes.

"You need to fix this," he said, his voice hitching on his last words. "Right. NOW."

Dina's eyes wavered in unexpected confusion at the angry tone. Her mouth began to wobble.

"NO! NO CRYING!"

The toddler gasped as her father snapped at her. He'd never snapped at her. Never. He seemed to realize his mistake as he took a deep breath.

"I'm sorry. There's just… a lot of papers. Would you help me clean them up? Please, Dina?" He smiled in what he hoped was a reassuring manner, but the child was clearly shaken. She nodded meekly and tapped at her chest without conviction, sending out a flurry of tiny hearts to lift the papers and put them back into stacks.

Jonathan sighed. "Thank you, Dina. I didn't mean to yell, I'm sorry."

He didn't mean to yell. He really didn't.

And yet lately, whenever that innocuous smile came his way…

A black spot of ink dropped off the desk, landing on a heart-shaped paper below.

"Why?" he mumbled to himself, watching the baby attempt to clean the mess it had made. "Why did it have to be like this?"

"Di-naaa!" The baby turned to him with a bright smile, unaware of what he was saying. He clenched at his heart.

"Ugh… what am I saying? Stop it, Jonathan, you're being selfish." He sighed as he knelt down to wipe up the dripping ink. He certainly couldn't force a toddler to clean up his entire office, even a magical one.

"No, I think you're right. Why should you be the only one without a happy ending?"

"AUGH!" Jonathan stumbled in shock, reaching up to touch the hot breath on his ear. Nobody was there.

"My, my. The prince himself, sporting a dark heartbeat? What a pleasant surprise." In the doorway, a boy with tiny bat-wings behind his hair smirked. Jonathan growled, clutching his chest protectively.

"You'll never get a Distain out of me, Ira. And I'm the president, not the prince."

"Whatever. You think I care about politics? As if." The boy crossed his arms behind his head. "And I'm not going to make a Distain out of you… not yet, anyway, so you can relax."

"Yeah, right." Jonathan glanced behind him, making sure Dina was out of harm's way. "If not to make a Distain, then why did you come here?"

"Honestly? I was kinda bored," Ira yawned. "Oh, and frustrated. Can't forget that. Misery loves company, you know."

Jonathan clenched the handle of his sword, not breaking his gaze on the Mercenare before him. "So I've heard. After all, you Mercenares stick together and you all seem pretty miserable."

"Stick together? Hah! That's a good one." Ira spun around from his spot in the air and grinned down at the Splendorian. "We work together under orders. That's it."

"Well, your king's not around anymore," Jonathan pointed out, "so why are you and Marmo still working together?"

Ira stiffed, then glanced away. "Hmph. Thanks to you and your stupid Glitter Force, food is pretty tight right now, so Marmo and I have called a temporary alliance to scavenge. That is all."

Jonathan raised an eyebrow. "Uh-huh. So sorry you're having trouble robbing corner-street grocery stores. Maya told me alllll about the incident from a week ago."

"Oh, the Ramen Noodle Distain?" Ira laughed at the memory. "That was fun! Broke college kids sure have a lot of pent-up anger and despair just waiting to be let out." His grin lowered into confusion. "But… I'm not really sure why that's relevant."

"You just said you were tight on food," Jonathan replied, eyeing the area for possible backup. Ira was one for banter, sure, but not meaningless idle chat… there had to be a trap somewhere.

"Uh, yeah. Food. Dark energy. Not whatever you call those instant packets of deliciousness." Ira rolled his eyes.

Jonathan blinked. "Ira… that's food."

The boy cocked his head. For a moment, his confusion almost made his face look as innocent as Dina's. "Whaddya mean?" he asked in a flat voice.

"Ramen is food. And so is everything else in the grocery store that you tried to rob."

Ira blinked again. "Oh. Huh. Humans use that for energy?"

"Yes, and Splendorians— wait, can we back up to the part about dark energy? I thought that was just a power source," Jonathan said, narrowing his eyes.

"You say tomato, I say tomato," Ira replied with a shrug.

"Uh, you pronounced it the same way both times…"

"Exactly! They're the same thing!" Ira rolled his eyes, flipping around again in midair like an olympic swimmer. "Geez, you're a slow one."

"Sorry," Jonathan said, still untrusting of the Mercenare but remembering that positive replies always worked best on intended insults. "So you're telling me that dark energy is actually what you Mercenares live off of?"

"Not just that." Ira stopped moving and locked eyes with the president of Splendorius. "It's what we're made out of. Take our dark energy away and we crumble into nothingness."

Jonathan felt himself slowly unclench his hand from around the handle of his blade. "You're kidding. That's… terrifying."

"What's terrifying is when one of us gets so low on energy that we can't stand up for ourselves and then the others consume us." Ira laughed, but this time it sounded… forced, unnatural. "Man, you Splendorians have such weak stomachs. You wouldn't have lasted a second watching what happened back before King Mercenare was set free."

Jonathan was absolutely, positively sure that Ira was distracting him from a trap of some sort. But he felt himself pick up Dina and take a seat behind his desk anyway, as if he were talking to a subject with a trivial issue about land ownership or the sort. "What happened?"

"Tch…" Ira looked away, and for a moment seemed ready to decline. But then his face suddenly grew serious, and he went on. "A massacre, that's what happened. We ran out of other creatures to snatch dark hearts from. The people grew restless without their king. No food, no orders, no purpose… they… we… all turned on each other. There was no other alternative."

"Alta'naive?" Dina looked up at Jonathan with concern, not grasping what she was hearing. He gently placed his hands over her ears, then looked up at Ira.

"You ate each other?"

"Ate. Consumed. Whatever you want to call it." Ira blew a strand of hair out of his face. It was almost disconcerting, now, the expression he bore. He tried without much success to look indifferent while he described the events he remembered. "I was so young… and weak. I had to join a clan just to survive. It was a blow to my pride, but I didn't really understand pride that much back then, anyway. I even made a pact with a non-clan member." He spat on the ground, not noticing that Dina flew over to clean it up. "I was a fool. A fool and a coward. I actually trusted another Mercenare not to hurt me, even if it meant her own life… It was dumb. And it cost me. I would've died if Bel hadn't stepped in when he had."

"Bel saved you?"

Ira shot Jonathan a don't-interrupt-me-while-I'm-talking kind of look. "He enslaved me, more like. Made me his crony… I kind of got passed onto King Mercenare himself, once the darkness was freed and he took over the body of the King. But yeah, I was too weak to defend myself."

Jonathan was silent as Ira turned away from him. He was starting to think the reason the Mercenare hadn't told him why he'd come was because he didn't even want to admit the reason to himself.

"Bel, Marmo, and I… were the only ones left of our clan. There were… a few others…" The tiny wings folded themselves flat against the boy's head. He wiped his eyes with his sleeve. "Stupid imposters… they deserved what they got coming…"

"Comwing?"

Jonathan looked up, startled, not even having noticed Dina leave his arms. The baby tugged on the dangerous boy's sleeve. He looked over at her with annoyance.

"It's nothing you would understand, you stupid brat," he scoffed, and promptly shot her with a gust of wind that did no more than hurl her backwards a few feet in the air.

"What about Distains?" Jonathan asked carefully, catching Dina and holding her tighter against his chest. "When you create them out of dark energy, aren't you wasting your food?"

"It's called a gamble," Ira shot back, glancing over his shoulder with weary eyes. "Like in cards, you have to put in a bet before you can expect to win anything back. When we use dark hearts to create Distains, we're sacrificing a temporary meal in the hopes that it will cause chaos and despair, creating more dark energy for us to feed off of. Of course, there's not much point in gambling when your opponent is a bunch of filthy stinking cheaters who can use a royal straight flush whenever they darn well please…"

"I thought Bel said being called a cheater was a compliment to a Mercenare," Jonathan noted, craning his head to see if the drops of water on Ira's cheeks were just his imagination.

"I-It is!" he retorted. "For, uh, a Mercenare. Not for the Glitter Force. For them it's an insult. So I'm insulting them." He rubbed his eyes viciously before turning to stick his tongue out at Johnny.

"Uh-huh." The blond felt a sad smile tug at the corner of his lips. "You know, Ira… your veil is wearing pretty thin."

Ira cocked his head. "Huh?"

"Your disguise. Your facade. You act as if you hate the Glitter Force, and you usually do a pretty good job of it, but tonight your acting's a bit weak."

"WHAT?!" Ira huffed. "I DO hate them! Geez, you sound just like Glitter Diamond!"

"Ah, right." Johnny smiled and patted Dina's head. "That's the one you like, right?"

"H-huh? I do NOT like her! I don't like any of the Glitter Force! Didn't I just finish explaining how much they ruin my life? Are you deaf or something?"

Johnny shook his head. "But that's exactly why you're upset, isn't it? You don't really hate the Glitter Force. But you can't like them, because it's literally impossible for you to be with them. You want to find it in your heart to hate them, but deep down, you know it's all an act because you actually l—"

"DON'T—!" Ira pointed a threatening finger at the well-dressed man. "—you dare finish that sentence."

Jonathan put his hands up. "Fine then, I won't. But explain to me why you're here."

"I-I already told you that."

"Do you even remember what you said?"

Ira bit his lip, thinking for a moment. "I w-was bored."

"And frustrated." Jonathan stared Ira in the eye. "And because you were frustrated, you needed someone to talk to. 'Misery loves company,' after all. So you chose me."

"I didn't choose you!" Ira snapped. "I just followed the first dark heartbeat I found!"

"So you admit that you wanted— needed— someone to talk to."

Ira growled. His wings flared outward as his hands balled into fists. "Don't get so cocky. I could still create a Distain out of you, you know. Even though your heart's gotten… a lot… lighter…" He frowned as he stared into the man's heart, past what most people were able to see. "Wait, how's your spot of dark energy gotten so small already? It was huge when I arrived."

"Practice," Jonathan replied with a smirk. "Can't have the president of an entire world showing weakness, after all. The last king was overtaken completely by his own selfish desires. Imagine what a panic would break out if they thought the same might happen to their new leader! Hah!"

Ira stared as the blond man laughed and stretched out his arms above his head. "Um… that sounds like something a Mercenare would say."

Now Jonathan glanced up in confusion. "Mm? Which part? The part about causing a panic? Because believe me, buddy, that's not gonna happen." He set his face defiantly.

"No… the part about not showing weakness. It just sounds like something Bel would say, that's all."

Jonathan blinked.

"But I guess you're too high-and-mighty to be compared to him, huh? Do you actually believe you can never show selfishness?"

The blond narrowed his eyes. "Yes. What kind of game are you trying to play?"

"I'm not playing a game! And if I am," Ira replied, suddenly swinging upside-down to engage Jonathan at eye level, "at least I'm playing fair. You still have a speck of dark energy right now. I could snap my fingers in a moment and your heart would be totally consumed by darkness."

"And then you'd create a Distain?"

"Or eat it. Either way, you'd never wake up unless it was purified. And undoubtedly, those doki-doki dum-dums would show up for that exact reason, and I'd leave weak and hungry." Ira scoffed. "So go on. You were saying you can never show weakness?"

"Weakness, selfishness, any of it. Nothing that would indicate that I had any darkness within me," Jonathan shot back, willing himself not to look away. "I'm the leader now. The entire people of Splendorius depend on me— not to mention all the people who depend on me in the other world. I'm the successor to a king who's fallacies cost LIVES. That speck of darkness in my heart you mentioned? I'll SQUASH it!"

Ira raised an eyebrow as Jonathan slammed a fist against his desk.

"I've practiced for almost a YEAR now, getting rid of darkness! Any selfish thought that comes my way, I kick it to the curb! I'm the president, for goodness' sake, I live for the good of my PEOPLE! Not myself! Not my own vain ambitions! My PEOPLE!"

Ira studied the man's movements with fascination. His pupils had redacted, his heart appeared pure, and yet his body was trembling ever-so-slightly in anger. "So basically… your life isn't your own? That's what you're saying?"

"That's EXACTLY what I'm saying!" Jonathan grinned, unaware that his every other motion was causing his facade to crumble, just as Ira's had. "My life isn't my own! It belongs to the people of Splendorius! Who cares if I have a selfish desire? NOBODY! That's who!"

Dina whimpered quietly, backing away slowly from both other parties.

"If I want something, I distract myself!" Jonathan continued. "I have stacks of paperwork high enough to last me a lifetime! And if I have to distract myself for the rest of my life, that's what I'll do! Because it's all up to ME now! I'M the one who has to keep my people safe! I'M the one who has to raise Dina! I'M the one who has to tell the citizens that everything is fine—"

"—even if you're just pretending," Ira finished.

Something in the room snapped.

It wasn't Ira's fingers.

"Tell me… WHY?"

Ira flew backwards in fear as Jonathan lept off the table, hurling a bottle of ink against the wall with a satisfying CRASH.

"TELL ME WHY IT HAD TO BE ME!"

The Mercenare watched wide-eyed as the heart which had been completely pure only moments before was suddenly stained with rapidly spreading darkness.

"IT'S NOT FAIR! I NEVER ASKED FOR ANYTHING IN THIS LIFE, I WAS HAPPY WITH WHATEVER WAS GIVEN TO ME! I WORKED HARD FOR EVERYTHING I HAD, I WAS PERFECTLY CONTENT WITH MY LIFE! THEN— THEN I FOUND THE ONE THING THAT MADE MY WORLD LIGHT UP MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE, AND I DEDICATED MY ENTIRE LIFE TO HER— TO KEEPING HER SAFE—"

The heart filled entirely black.

But it didn't stop.

"Jonathan—"

"—HER HAND WAS THE ONE THING I EVER ASKED FOR! DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT? AND SHE SAID YES, AND I SWORE THAT I'D NEVER NEED ANYTHING MORE THAN HER, NOT FOR AS LONG AS I LIVED!"

Ira was growing alarmed now. The darkness didn't stop spreading. It filled the heart, but somehow it still seemed to be pulsing out—

"Jonathan—"

"I DIDN'T ASK FOR A PRINCESS, I DIDN'T ASK FOR A KINGDOM, I DIDN'T ASK FOR POWER, NONE OF THAT EVER MATTERED TO ME! I ASKED FOR LOVE, IRA! AND IT WAS TAKEN AWAY FROM ME!"

"JONATHAN! YOUR HEART!"

"WHY DID EVERYONE ELSE GET A HAPPY ENDING BUT M—"

The heart cracked.

Dark energy poured out of his body as a waterfall of tears.

In a moment of pure, unadulterated instinct, Ira lunged forth and bit him on the neck.