The moon hung like a pale ghost in the sky, casting silver ripples across the slow-moving river that curved around the outer edge of the academy.
Zen stood silently beside Daiki, their reflections shimmering in the dark water, broken only by the occasional ripple from a falling leaf or a drifting breeze. Neither of them spoke at first. The world seemed still.
Only the quiet hum of crickets dared to make a sound.
"…Zen," Daiki finally murmured. "Thanks for coming."
Zen glanced sideways. "You said you needed to talk."
Daiki nodded slowly. "Yeah… There's something I've never told anyone at this academy."
He stared at the river, as if the truth were buried somewhere beneath the surface.
"The first time I met you," he said, "I felt something strange. Not magic. Not instinct. It felt like… my little brother was standing in front of me."
Zen turned to him fully now. The breeze tousled his hair. "…Your brother?"
Daiki's eyes gleamed in the moonlight, but not with joy. With something older—something broken.
"My whole village," Daiki whispered. "It was attacked."
Zen's voice was soft. "Attacked by… someone?"
"Yeah," Daiki nodded. "We never knew who. But they weren't raiders. They didn't kill everyone right away. They took people. My mother. My father. Villagers. My little brother—he was only six."
Zen's fingers clenched at his sides.
Daiki exhaled. "I tried to protect him. We all did. My parents told me to take him and run. But he… he wouldn't listen. He said, 'I won't leave you, even if I die.'"
Daiki's voice cracked.
"I wanted to stay with our parents... and let my little brother live. So I slapped him. Told him to shut up. To run. To survive."
He swallowed hard.
"They caught us anyway. Sealed our little powers. Split us. My mother and little brother in one carriage. Me and my father in another."
Zen's eyes widened. He didn't move, only listened, the shadows of the past curling around both of them.
"My father… he had a hidden fire crystal. We used it to burn the inside of the carriage. He said, 'Run, Daiki. Don't look back.'"
Daiki's voice dropped to a whisper. "So I ran."
Zen didn't breathe.
"I was crying. I didn't look back. I just ran like a coward."
[System Nex]: [...User...]
The usual geometric spark that surrounded Nex was gone. His edges dimmed, voice soft, almost human. [Memory resonance detected. Emotional corruption rising...]
Zen didn't answer Nex. His throat was tight.
Daiki's lips trembled. "Zen… they sold my family. For forbidden research. On our bodies. Like livestock."
He shook.
Zen's voice trembled slightly, though he tried to mask it.
"research ? What did they do?"
There was a hesitation in his words, an undercurrent of something darker — like he could almost feel the weight of the truth even before Daiki spoke it.
Daiki's eyes narrowed as he met Zen's gaze, seeing the change in him.
His own expression hardened, fury swirling in his chest. He stepped forward, his voice low and filled with a grim, dangerous edge.
"They didn't just perform a ritual, Zen. They destroyed lives. Desecrated bodies."
He spat the words out like poison.
"They cut them open, took them apart while they were still breathing. Forced them to stay alive just so they could see how long a body could endure before it broke completely. They opened chests and ripped out organs... just to watch the blood spill like it was nothing. They sliced nerves open, stretched them, cut them until the body couldn't even feel pain anymore."
Daiki's voice cracked for a moment, like the sheer horror of it was tearing him apart again.
"And that was just the start. After they sawed through the bones, they sewed them back together wrong — not to heal, but to see how much the body could take before it just gave up. And they didn't even bother to numb the pain. They wanted the screams. They wanted to hear the body break... to see how much it could handle before it became a lifeless shell."
He paused, eyes blazing with unholy fury, his breath sharp and ragged.
"And after all that... when the body was ruined, when the mind couldn't bear it anymore, they kept them alive. Fed them potions to mend their skin, to quicken their healing—but all it did was stitch together a new nightmare. Flesh, twisted and wrong, growing in ways the body wasn't meant to, parts rejected, but they just kept forcing it. Forced them to grow back.
Daiki's voice shook with disgust as his eyes met Zen's.
"They called it research. But what it really was, Zen..." His hands trembled with barely contained fury. "It was torture. Pure, unrelenting torture, dressed up in the name of power."
He took a step back, trying to calm his breathing, but his chest still heaved with emotion.
"And they did it over and over. They didn't care about the bodies.
"I saw my little brother. For a month. Locked behind a glass wall. He was—he was dying. Every day. Needles, burns, tests. His screams, Zen. He never cried before that. But he cried every night. And I—"
Daiki fell to his knees in the grass. His hands covered his face.
"I watched him die. A 5-year-old boy. My baby brother. And I couldn't even hold his hand…"
Zen dropped beside him. His own tears fell, silent but steady.
"They said," Daiki choked out, "that everyone else died too. My mother. My father. Every innocent person in our village. Sold, used, discarded."
The wind no longer stirred.
[System Nex]:
Processing...
Pain pattern linked. Source confirmed: Eldoria Massacre parallels.
...Sympathy algorithm initiated.
...Sorry, Zen.
Zen was quiet, yet inside his chest was a hurricane of agony.
His parents. His kingdom. Eldoria—burning in crimson flame. Screams. Blood. And now this… Daiki's pain echoing his own. Another life torn apart by cruelty and power.
Daiki's hands trembled.
"My village…" he said softly, the words tasting like ash, "wasn't made for fighting. We were mostly farmers, artists and some of us just low level hunters who hunt to eat food. We… we believed that if you didn't harm anyone, no one would harm you. That if we stayed away from war and bloodshed, the world would let us live quietly."
Zen listened, eyes wide, frozen still.
"Most people in our village didn't even know how to hold a sword properly," Daiki whispered. "My little brother… he was the moody, quiet type—didn't talk much unless he had to. But he was kind. My mom used to make herb tea for anyone who had a cough. We didn't even have guards."
He let out a bitter laugh that cracked in the middle.
"We were too peaceful, Zen. That was our crime. We thought the world would respect that."
"You know what that feels like? To know your family wasn't killed because they were enemies, or warriors, or rebels—but just because they were easy?"
Zen's hands clenched at his side. Nex hovered silently, unusually dim.
[System Nex]: [Innocents lost. Trauma resonance escalating... Initiating silent mode.]
His head dropped.
"And my little brother… he never had a chance. He didn't even understand why he was being hurt. He just wanted to go home together."
Zen's heart cracked like glass.
Zen's hand reached out slowly and rested on Daiki's trembling shoulder.
Daiki looked up at him through wet eyes.
Zen's voice was low, shaking, as if trying to hold back the weight of his words.
"I'll remember your family too. Thank you... for sharing this with me."
[System Nex]: [System Memory Updated: Daiki's Past - Bound.]
New Passive Unlocked: Shared Grief – Empathy threshold increased. Inner Willpower strengthening…
The stars above shimmered faintly. The river whispered its endless song. Two broken boys sat in silence, bound by the memories of what they'd lost—and by the fire that would keep them moving forward.
Zen would not forget.
Daiki would not be alone.
And somewhere deep inside, something awakened.
Not anger.
But resolve.
Daiki gripped Zen's shoulder tightly, his voice low and urgent.
"That's why, Zen… I don't want you to die."
Zen's breath hitched.
"Please, I have a request," Daiki's voice cracked. "Leave the academy. Leave before it's too late."
Zen blinked, stunned. "Leave the academy?"
Daiki nodded, tears welling in his eyes again. "Yes… Something will happen. Soon. After your fight with Vaelstrom, this academy—Eboncrest—won't be the same."
A sharp breeze passed between them, as if the wind itself froze at those words.
Zen narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean 'something will happen'?"
"I can't tell you that," Daiki said, swallowing hard. "Just… take Lyra, your friends—get away from here."
Zen shook his head slowly, his voice steady. "I can't. If something happens to Vaelstrom, and we vanish before that, the whole academy will suspect us. Eboncrest will be marked by doubt."
Daiki turned away, biting his lip. "You don't have to worry about that. I'll handle it. I'll take the blame, the suspicion—anything. Just… live, Zen. Please."
Zen looked at Daiki, confused, aching. "What's going to happen to Vaelstrom…?"
Daiki's fists clenched. His jaw tightened. "I can't tell you."
"Why not?"
Daiki finally met his eyes, the pain behind them bottomless.
"Because… if I told you, you'd hate me."
He exhaled, defeated. "And maybe one day, you will know. And you'll hate me anyway. But even if that happens—I don't care. I'll accept it. As long as you live."
Zen stared at him in stunned silence.
Daiki turned away, hiding the trembling in his shoulders. "Please… just take Lyra and everyone you care about and leave this place before it's too late."
Before Zen could speak—
"Zen!"
Lyra's voice rang out from the path behind them, cutting through the stillness like a dagger.
A rustle in the bushes, followed by Kleez popping out with a grin too wide for someone who just got lost in the woods.
"There you are! Don't you know it's illegal to sneak off dramatically in the middle of the night? That's my job."
Zen wiped his eyes quickly. "It's nothing, we were just—"
"Having a cry by the river like two sad poetry books," Kleez said, arms crossed, clearly trying to lighten the mood.
Lyra looked between them. Her expression softened. "Zen… your eyes—are you crying?"
"No," Zen said quickly.
"Yes," Daiki added helpfully.
Kleez smirked. "I knew it! Bonding tears! Alright, who's confessing feelings first?"
Daiki cleared his throat. "I mean… I'd marry Zen if he asked. He's got the tragic prince aesthetic and perfect hair."
Zen groaned.
Lyra raised an eyebrow. "I leave for five minutes and this is what happens?"
[System Nex]: [Note: Emotional breakdowns by rivers now logged as a standard bonding ritual.]
[System Nex]: [Suspicion Level: Lyra – Rising rapidly. Threat Level: Kleez's sarcasm – Unmanageable.]
Daiki chuckled softly, the sadness still lingering behind his smile. "Relax. I'm just teasing."
"Barely," Kleez muttered.
Lyra crossed her arms. "Zen, you promised you wouldn't sneak out again."
"I didn't promise. I tactfully avoided promising," Zen muttered.
Daiki rubbed the back of his neck. "It was my fault. I needed to talk to him. Alone."
"Next time," Lyra said, poking Zen's chest, "you bring me too. I'm part of this weird, tragic, cursed adventure family whether you like it or not."
Zen gave her a small, exhausted smile.
And despite everything—whatever was coming, whatever Daiki meant—Zen felt a little steadier, surrounded by people who, somehow, made the pain easier to carry.