Her words didn't make sense.
They couldn't.
My son.
The sound echoed through the hollow city, soft and trembling, and somehow, it felt heavier than everything I'd ever carried.
I stared up at her, throat tight, every word clawing to get out but dying before it reached the air."…No."
It was all I could manage. Just that one, broken word.
"No," I said again, louder this time, my voice shaking. "You're wrong."
Her violet gaze never wavered. It was calm, patient, unbearably kind, like a mother watching her child's tantrum with love instead of anger. And that made it worse. So much worse.
"I'm not—" My voice cracked. I bit it back, hating the way it trembled. "I'm not your son. I'm not anything."
A laugh tore from me, bitter and thin, echoing through the dead air. "I was a damn street rat. You remember that, don't you? You picked me because I was convenient. Some random body to toss into a dying world."
Still, she didn't move. Didn't argue. Just watched me silent, unblinking, unshakably gentle.
That look hurt more than any blade could.
"Don't look at me like that." My chest ached. I couldn't even explain why. "Don't look at me like I matter."
The flames in her eyes softened, like dusk bleeding into twilight. "You do."
Something cracked inside me. "Stop—"
"I wish I could tell you why," she said quietly, her voice trembling in a way that didn't sound divine at all. "But the time hasn't come. When you reach S-rank… the truth will find you."
I wanted to scream. To tell her I didn't want the truth. That whatever she saw in me was a lie, a cruel mistake.
That I was still that broken boy, scavenging from the gutters, praying to gods that never listened.
That I didn't deserve her eyes, her voice, her warmth.
But my voice failed me.
The words burned in my throat, and all that came out was a broken whisper. "Why does it hurt so damn much to hear you say that?"
For a heartbeat, her light flickered, softer now, dimming around the edges.
"Somewhere inside," she said, "you already know."
What she said shouldn't have mattered, but it did. It dug into places I didn't even know were still bleeding
My knees felt weak. The endless void around us pulsed faintly, responding to her fading presence. I wanted to move, to reach her, to demand the truth — but my body felt frozen, like the air itself had turned to glass.
She began to fade.
"Wait—no!" I reached out, but my hands were nothing. Smoke against light. "Don't just—"
Her voice drifted through the dark, soft as the sigh of a dying star.
"I have two gifts for you."
The void itself seemed to hold its breath.
"The first…" Her voice trembled, heavy with something that sounded too much like sorrow. "A forbidden sword art. Born at the dawn of time, when death itself was still learning its first language."
The air split open.
Black wisps slithered from her unraveling form thin, fluid, alive. They swirled around me, each whispering in a tongue that existed before sound itself. Every tendril hummed with meaning too ancient to name, brushing against my skin like memories that weren't mine.
And then they pierced through me.
Pain.
Not the kind that makes you scream, the kind that breaks what you are. The kind that makes you want to kill yourself.
The sword art didn't enter my mind, it rewrote it. Each motion, each strike, carved into me like scripture etched in bone. I saw a blade that could silence hearts, a dance that ended wars, a technique whispered by death to its first Reaper.
Images flashed, a god bleeding beneath an endless sky, a shadow cutting through creation itself, the blade moving faster than grief.
It wasn't just a technique. It was a language of endings. A hymn of silence.
The knowledge screamed through me, too vast, too cruel, too alive.
When it ended, I fell, or I would have, if falling still meant anything here.
My thoughts felt burned out, hollow. My hands trembled, phantom muscles remembering movements my body couldn't yet perform. I could still feel it inside me, a weight, a song, a promise.
Her voice came again, faint now, unraveling at the edges.
"The second… is a companion."
The void stirred again.
From what was left of her body, light condensed not violet now, but black and molten, alive with something that bent space. It pulsed with energy that made the air shiver.
It coalesced, spinning, condensing, until it became solid.
An egg.
White, streaked with rivers of blue, as though lightning had been frozen beneath its shell. Its surface gleamed with symbols I couldn't read, runes shifting like breath. It pulsed — once, twice — in rhythm with my heartbeat.
No.
Not with mine.
As mine.
I stared, wordless, as it drifted closer, drawn by something deeper than will.
And before I could move, it sank into my chest.
A scream tore out of me.
Not from pain, that word didn't do it justice.It was like being unmade.Like every piece of who I was was being peeled apart and rebuilt.
Something foreign alive and burning, was fusing into my soul.
The egg's pulse merged with mine, its energy clawing through every vein of my existence. I felt it settle deep, deeper than my heart, where my essence lived.Where something new now slept.
"Make it stop!" I gasped, but there was no one left to hear.Only the echo of her fading voice.
"Protect it well… my son."
The words fell like blessings and curses all at once.
And then everything shattered.
I hit something solid, hard, cold, real. My lungs seized as air rushed back into them, dragging me out of the darkness.
For a second, I couldn't breathe. The world spun.Then sound returned faint, distant, the rustle of sheets, the slow drip of water.
When I blinked, I was back in the infirmary.
The cracked ceiling above me looked almost unreal after what I'd just seen.
My whole body throbbed, every nerve raw, trembling from a storm I couldn't name.
But beneath the pain… something stirred.
A whisper of movement, deep inside my soul. Soft. Faint. Alive.
And with it, the steady beat of a second heart quiet, patient, waiting.