Seko sat cross-legged on the cold floor, the weight of his bloodlust hanging in the air like smoke. His red eyes shimmered faintly, pupils dilated, but his expression was unreadable. Calm… disturbingly calm. Every now and then, a flicker of something dangerous twitched across his face, but he controlled it with practiced precision.
Just outside the cell, Kiyomi leaned against the wall with her arms crossed. Her posture was relaxed, but her eyes were sharp. She studied him, as if waiting for the moment his restraint cracked.
High above in the surveillance room, Atama lounged in a levitating recliner, one hand deep in a bag of glowing, translucent snacks. His gaze lazily drifted between screens. "Ooooh," he muttered around a mouthful of crumbs, "he's in his brooding arc. Classic main character behavior."
Seko's voice broke the silence, low and controlled. "It's ironic. I ran from monsters... and became one."
Kiyomi didn't answer. She only watched him with that same calm neutrality.
He tilted his head slightly, not looking at her. "Tell me, Hunter... do I look like someone who deserves mercy?"
"You look like someone deciding whether to stay human... or finally give in," she replied, her voice even, but not without weight.
In a shadowed corner, the same ten-year-old boy from earlier sat quietly on the stone stairs, knees hugged to his chest. His eyes were too steady for a child, his voice soft as mist. "Why don't you drink the blood?" he asked. "You want it."
Seko lifted his gaze toward the boy, eyes glowing faintly. "Because I still remember what it felt like… to be human."
The boy tilted his head, his tone devoid of cruelty, just truth. "But you're not. Not anymore. You're broken."
Kiyomi's eyes flicked toward the child, surprised for the first time in hours. Still, she remained silent.
Seko's jaw tightened. "Even a broken blade can still cut," he murmured.
Then, without warning, Atama appeared behind the boy, yawning mid-air as though emerging from a dream. He stretched, looked down at them all, and grinned. "Mmm... philosophical banter with a splash of tragedy," he said while reaching for another snack. "I give it a seven out of ten."
Seko didn't look at him. "You're enjoying this."
Atama's voice was light, but his smirk didn't reach his eyes. "No. I'm observing this. If I enjoyed things, I'd be predictable."
He ruffled the boy's hair, who didn't flinch even slightly. Kiyomi narrowed her eyes. "You never said who that kid is," she said.
Atama gave a nonchalant shrug. "Neither did I say who he isn't."
Seko's gaze sharpened. "He's not normal. That much I can tell."
With a curl of his lip, Atama replied, "Neither are you. Neither am I. The real question is—who gets to decide what 'normal' even means anymore?"
He tossed a piece of snack through the forcefield. It bounced off the barrier with a soft tink. Then, with a teasing grin, he added in a sing-song tone, "Go on then, monk boy. Prove you're different. Or just... wait. I like watching people fall apart."
Seko's fingers curled into fists, his restraint cracking like thin glass. The walls of the cell groaned faintly as his bloodlust pulsed again—this time more raw, more tangible. He stood up slowly, eyes narrowed at the ever-unbothered Atama, who was now lazily humming "I curse the name, The one behind it all..." from Discord by The Living Tombstone, completely unfazed by the tension suffocating the room.
Seko finally snapped. In a blur of motion, he surged forward and grabbed Atama by the collar. "Enough!" he barked, fangs flashing ever so slightly. "You sit there like a god... while lives fall apart under your feet. What the hell are you!?"
He lifted—or tried to. His muscles strained, but Atama didn't move. Not an inch. Not in weight, not in expression. It was like trying to lift the concept of stillness itself. The air around him was heavier than stone, as if existence itself refused to budge him.
Atama just gave another long yawn, still humming faintly. "Mmm... catchy beat. Shame you're tone-deaf in the soul, monk boy."
Kiyomi's sword was halfway drawn, her eyes narrowed and locked on Seko. "Let him go," she said flatly, voice like drawn steel.
Seko didn't loosen his grip. He glared deeper, as if staring into a void he couldn't map. "You act like nothing matters... is this some twisted game to you?"
The child on the stairs didn't move. He just looked up with a calm, almost tired expression. "He's always like this."
Atama finally looked Seko in the eye—really looked. For the briefest second, something incomprehensible stirred behind that hollow gaze. It wasn't malice. It was… depth. Fractal, infinite, and far beyond emotion.
"I don't play games," Atama whispered, voice now impossibly quiet. "Games have rules. I don't."
And with that, he gently removed Seko's hand from his collar with two fingers—no force, no effort. Just inevitability.
Seko stepped back instinctively. His breathing heavy, his confusion deeper.
Atama turned away, brushing imaginary dust off his coat. "You think pain makes you special. That grief earns answers. It doesn't. You want to matter, monk boy?"
He turned his head slightly, voice now low and heavy.
"Then survive."
Atama paused at the center of the room, exhaling a faint breath as if tired of reality itself. Then, with a slow wave of his hand—casual, like brushing aside a curtain—the world around them shattered.
In an instant, the stone walls of the holding cell faded into nothing.
Seko blinked.
Then stared.
They were no longer inside the prison. They were suspended in something far more vast—an endless plane, woven from thoughts, memories, probabilities, and contradictions. It wasn't just information.
It was Atama's consciousness.
A living, breathing architecture of knowledge and collapse. The Area of Self-Consciousness.
It wasn't terrifying because it was infinite. Infinity, in its raw form, could be made beautiful. This wasn't. It was imperfect. Purposefully. Every thread of logic, every path of thought, was knotted with failures. Splinters of wrong choices, misjudged probabilities, unfinished equations—errors so abundant, so intimately tangled with the correct answers, that the mind reeled trying to separate them.
One miscalculated step in physics—boom, a cascade of collapsing universes.
A misjudged intention in morality—crack, a branch of civilizations torn from root.
There were not thousands. Not millions. There were infinite failed realities.
And Atama knew each one. Let each one live.
Seko stood still, breath caught in his throat. His instincts screamed, his bloodlust curled in submission. This wasn't a battlefield. This was godlike introspection weaponized.
But still—he didn't flinch.
Atama stood calmly at the center of it all, arms crossed behind his back as if they were just taking a stroll. "Most people hide their flaws," he began, voice resonating through the space, "bury their failed thoughts. They chase the correct version of themselves. I don't."
He walked slowly, and with each step, the world twisted to accommodate his motion—planets formed, stars collapsed, civilizations blinked in and out of existence with the shrug of a thought.
"I embrace every mistake, every misfire, every lapse in judgment. Not because I want to—" he paused, "—but because someone has to."
He glanced over his shoulder at Seko, eyes glowing not with light, but layered meanings. "You're terrified because you think a monster is someone who loses control. But real monsters… are the ones who never do. The ones who calculate the worst outcome—then make it happen anyway."
Seko clenched his fists, his throat dry. The bloodlust that always swirled inside him felt meaningless now. Compared to this? He was just... a drop in an ocean.
Atama turned to face him fully. "So tell me, Vampire Monk," he said softly, "will you still cling to your 'restraint'? Or will you understand… that surviving in this world isn't about being right."
He stepped closer, eyes level. "It's about knowing how to live with being wrong."
Seko smirks, a bit amused by the Irony, "You are doing this to lure me the side of Humanity aren't you? Being imperfectly terrifying, that is what humans are, aren't they? Infinite branches to infinite outcomes... and beyond... you are something else."