The mirror showed him first—no reflection, but a mockery: a child's face split perfectly in two. The upper half laughed with Itarim's grin, while the lower half wept with someone else's pain.
I froze; recognition slid behind my ribs like a cold blade.
"Itarim?" The name left my lips like a question wrapped in steel.
He turned. For a second his face was a cliff, light cutting away from it, leaving only a silhouette of calm that pierced me with a thousand knives. Then, almost tenderly, he allowed the faintest smile to pull at one corner of his mouth.
"Yeah. Let's move on."
The words thinned the corridor between us, as if the walls were paper soaked in blood. I said nothing—only nodded—and together we stepped through the next memory, as though pushing through a curtain of flesh.
He was five when they began the glassing of his heart. The room smelled of copper and boiled rope. Other children huddled in half-shadows on metal benches, their eyes far too old for their faces. At first, he played as children do—obedient, eager to please. But even then, the distance was there: laughter measured, smiles never reaching the throat, hands always folded just short of touch.
Rena gave them the word salvation and forced it down their throats with iron and whispers. She promised their hands were keys to end the war. Instead, they were taught to unmake—to kill, to carve away hope until nothing remained but sharpened bone.
The experiments hollowed them out. Flesh yielded to steel, will to cruelty. Most broke. A few endured. The survivors—emptied of childhood—were promoted to executioners. They became both subjects and tools of the very tortures they had once survived. Those who could not bear the burden were cast into the abyss, their names left like ash on the wind.
Yuta's nightmare drowned him in their screams. Chains clinked. Metal scraped. His own voice cracked against the ceiling, swallowed whole by silence.
Itarim stood in the memory, watching with an expression carved from stone. "Let's finish the recording, would you?"
Salt burned Yuta's throat. He forced the tremor from his body. "Have I not been through worse? Get a grip."
The boy—the man—rose. Shoulders squared. Something fractured inside Itarim, a sliver of respect blooming like a dark flower.
"Yeah," Yuta said. It was not courage, but refusal to drown again.
Seven years passed. Names had thinned, but faces remained: Itarim, Asaki, Nagumo, Rion, Gunta, Lito, Shina. Seven survivors. Four men. Three women.
Rena summoned them into her chamber like a priestess calling saints to their sacrament.
The walls were lined with weapons, each humming faintly, as though cradling a heartbeat. Rena smiled with the softness of a midwife who knows the child will never live.
One by one, they claimed what had been forged for them.
Shina grasped Tephite, the Arrows of Truth — shafts of void that pierced lies and existence alike.
Lito claimed Nocturne, twin daggers that erased memory with every cut.
Gunta bore Hollow Reign, the living shield that swallowed destruction whole before unleashing it in storm.
Rion clutched Chimera Fang, a spear that warped flesh into monstrosities with a single thrust.
Asaki lifted Aetherbrand, a staff whose flame burned years instead of flesh.
Nagumo took Gravemind, a blade growing heavier with every life it consumed, mountains splitting under its will.
And then, silence.
For the last relic did not whisper — it roared.
Itarim stepped forward, his fingers closing around the hilt of a sword so bright it drank the darkness around it. Its name was etched into his bones the moment he touched it:
Zuka — the God-Slayer.
Its edge was not steel but denial. To swing it was to erase deities, to unmake oaths, to cut even what was never meant to break. It was a blade colder than grief, sharper than betrayal, heavy with the will of annihilation.
When Itarim lifted it, the chamber bent. The air cracked, stone bowed, and the others stepped back, breath stolen by the weight of its presence.
He did not smile. He only whispered, "This is mine."
The seven became the Purge — children of glass, wielders of nightmares. The world named them saviors, kingslayers, demonslayers. They smiled for the crowds, their curses hidden behind shining titles.
But peace is a mask. Masks crack.
Days after the Demon King fell, Rena summoned Itarim alone. Her chamber reeked of incense that clung like old oaths. He knelt, presenting Zuka out of habit, out of trust.
Her pale fingers curled around the hilt. "Kill him."
The words struck colder than steel.
Before he could understand, the command was carried out. Blades flashed. Tendons parted. His hands, his legs, his balance—gone. He screamed, an animal sound, and the ceiling devoured it whole.
Above him, the faces of his comrades blurred into knives. His eyes sought Nagumo's. His friend's mouth moved, shaping words drowned in the static of betrayal. Darkness closed its jaws.
When Yuta returned, copper burned on his tongue—whether memory or blood, he couldn't tell.
Itarim stood before him, unbroken where it mattered: a jaw that could still smile, eyes that revealed nothing.
"I don't care about your past," Yuta spat, voice flat and sharp. "I care about the present. I will kill Rena and go home. If it means using you, so be it."
Itarim's smile folded like a knife into velvet. "I want to use you. And I want you to use me. That is a good kind of relationship."
"We are not one," Yuta snarled. "Don't weave delusions and call them pacts."
"You won't die while I breathe," Itarim said, voice edged with possession and promise alike. Chains of words bound themselves around Yuta's chest.
"Forget me. Forget this. Remember only when the time is right."
The chamber of blood and betrayal shattered. Screams dissolved to silence. The faces of the Purge drifted like ash on the wind.
Yuta's eyes flew open. He gasped, chest heaving, skin slick with sweat. His heart thundered, but his mind was hollow.
Something—someone—had been with him. A voice, a vow. Already gone.
Beside him, Luna slept soundly, curled beneath blankets, her breath slow and unbroken. Moonlight traced her features in silver, serenity etched where his chaos had been.
Yuta pressed a trembling hand to his forehead. "What… was I dreaming?"
No answer came.
Only the phantom weight of a vow he could no longer remember.
His gaze drifted back to Luna's calm face. Her presence steadied him. "At least you're safe," he whispered, forcing his breath to even out.
Yet in the hollow of forgotten memory, a voice lingered faintly—We are one.
Yuta shivered, blind to why.
And in the silence of that night, the pact endured, buried deep in darkness.