She didn't just tell me about the life she'd lived—she unfolded it, like a blade dragged slowly across skin. A life of violence. Of survival. Of becoming something that stared back at her from mirrors with hollow eyes.
A killer. Not the kind born from malice, but the kind forged in necessity, in the crucible of a world that had long since stopped offering choices. She spoke of the first time her hands didn't shake when she pulled the trigger.
The first time she watched the light leave someone's eyes and felt nothing. Not triumph. Not guilt. Just the cold, clinical understanding that it was done.
And then—because dreams have a way of unraveling the things we bury—she told me the truth about her mother.
I listened. I listened. And for the first time, I understood.
SERA had given me the outline: Yuko's return, the blood, the plea. But the truth was messier. Darker. More human.
