The world returned.
Not with light.
Not with glory.
But with pain.
A violent impact exploded against his face—and then came the metallic taste. Blood.
Victor fell to the side before he could even breathe properly. His vision was still blurry, his mind trapped between the deathbed… and the golden eyes of that woman.
Morgana Scarlet.
"Be the strongest in your universe."
— THUD.
Another kick struck his ribs.
The air escaped his lungs.
"Look at him! He doesn't even react!" Accompanied by disgusting words, there were several laughs, several youthful and cruel guffaws that once made Victor shrink and cry with lonely pain.
But now? Victor blinked, trying to focus. The sky above him was blue. Too blue. Too clean. There was no smell of smoke. There was no misery. There was no cold cabin where he died.
He was… in the training yard. 'No… it can't be—'
Another punch struck his jaw, sending his head slamming against the stone.
And then he saw it.
Four teenagers.
Valentine House uniforms.
The same faces.
Younger.
Less scarred.
He knew those faces.
This had happened before.
Years ago.
Long before the official diagnosis.
Long before they called his condition Null Syndrome.
"You're a waste of blood, Victor!"
"I bet you don't even feel pain properly!"
A laugh.
A kick.
His blood trickled from the corner of his mouth and dripped onto the pale stone of the yard.
Victor froze. 'I… have lived through this.'
The memory hit him harder than any punch.
He was fourteen years old... It was mandatory training that ended up being influenced by the brother of one of those teenagers; after all, power was everything… Back then…
He even tried to raise the sword but failed completely, and those boys tried to "teach" him his place.
Back then, he didn't react.
Back then, he only cried.
But now…
Now he remembered the misery.
The cold.
The death.
His mother's smile.
Her last breath.
His eyes widened.
He brought his trembling hand to his own face.
Young.
Without scars.
Without the weight of advanced illness.
His heart began to beat faster.
Not weak.
Not failing.
Strong.
One of the boys grabbed him by the collar.
"Are you listening, trash?"
Victor looked up, and that look was completely different from the boy who was completely defenseless… In fact, that look belonged to someone who had survived… Someone who had survived the worst side of this world…
The boy didn't like Victor's look.
"Look at him, what's with that look?" he asked arrogantly, pointing. The other, chubby boy beside him smiled, "Let's just kill him, he's useless." He said smiling.
The third, but behind him, simply said, "Let him go, he's just trash." He commented without interest, and the fourth, ah, the fourth… he had a real sword in his hand.
"I think we can… cut some parts off him. What do you think? I mean, we're vampires, right? He'll regenerate… it's good for him to learn what pain means." He said, and his smile almost reached his ears with satisfaction.
Victor, however, wasn't even listening. He just stared madly at the scar on his hand, the one he couldn't regenerate when he was little… It looked like a crack, but now… It had completely disappeared.
Not just the scar, but all feelings of weakness simply vanished from his body; no, it was different. He felt like he could kill everyone there in the blink of an eye, and they wouldn't even notice. His whole body screamed for battle.
'What did that woman do to me?' Victor wondered, after all, he was feeling an unconditional thirst for blood.
There was a thirst for blood and a yearning for strength that made him feel like a dog. A great hunting instinct surged within his heart. His vision turned slightly red, something that had never happened before.
The teenager with the sword began to approach while the others laughed. He looked at Victor, who seemed still thinking, and raised his sword, ready to attack.
The blade descended swiftly, cruelly and directly, towards Victor's shoulder.
But, in the instant the steel cut through the air—the world seemed to slow down.
Victor saw every detail very slowly: the contraction of the attacker's muscles, the shift of weight on his heel, and the accelerated pulse in the artery of his neck.
It was all incredibly slow, so slow! Ridiculously slow!
His body moved without any hesitation, he simply… disappeared from view, the sword cutting through the void.
The boy blinked. "Huh?"
Then, just a harrowing sound of nerves, muscles, and wet tears in a split second.
CRACK.
The arm holding the sword was no longer attached to the shoulder. For a second, no one understood.
Then the arm fell to the stone floor with a heavy thud, still holding the sword as if the muscles had locked up.
Silence.
The teenager looked at his own shoulder and saw the blood, so much blood gushing from it. Upon realizing this, he could only… scream.
And then—Victor was behind him.
Holding the severed arm by the joint, as if it were the simplest thing in the world.
His eyes were red, very red!
Seeing Victor's gaze, all four trembled with fear, as if they were being hunted by something much, much stronger!
He looked at them and began to laugh.
"HAHAHAHAHA!" A completely broken, loud, and uncontrolled laugh! Victor was just daydreaming in his mind.
"Cursed…?" He murmured between laughs, after all, he was crazy. "I… am not cursed," he concluded. "I'm going to kill everyone, no, that'll get me into trouble, so I'm going to—"
The boy tried to turn around—Victor was no longer there.
The second teenager fell to his knees, looking at his own severed arm before even feeling the full pain.
The third tried to run.
He couldn't take two steps.
Victor appeared in front of him and smiled, a cold smile, and ripped off both legs with a brutal movement, like someone breaking fragile branches.
The fourth one, who had suggested cutting off parts, remained paralyzed, still missing an arm.
The arrogance evaporated. "W-wait—"
Victor appeared before him, he tilted his head slightly and his smile widened. "You wanted to teach me pain… didn't you?"
The boy tried to summon energy, but it didn't come out in time.
Victor grasped his remaining arm and squeezed.
The bones cracked under his fingers. And then, with a violent pull—the remaining limb was torn off.
Blood stained the stones of the courtyard.
The four teenagers lay on the ground, limbs scattered, trying to regenerate—but the shock was too great, the trauma too deep.
"HAHAHAHA" Victor was in the center, breathing heavily but still laughing like a madman. Their blood splattered on his face.
His vision still slightly red, his heart pounding like war drums. He looked at his own hands.
"Hahaha, Oh yeah, that feeling… That's incredible… I loved that feeling… Beating up the weak, yeah, now I understand you… Come on, get your act together, I want to have more fun." He said with a crazy look, as if it were a joke but full of truth.