"You're my slave now."
The words hung in the air like a death sentence. For a moment, Sylvia's mind went completely blank shock and disbelief warring with the primal instinct to survive.
She moved. Her body twisted sharply to the left, ducking under Glen's arm and away from the blade at her throat. She felt the cold steel graze her skin, drawing a thin line of blood, but she was already rolling away, coming up in a defensive crouch several feet from him.
Her heart hammered against her ribs. Rudeus lay motionless where she'd dropped him, still unconscious.
Sylvia's eyes locked onto Glen except it wasn't Glen anymore, not really. The nervous energy was completely gone, replaced by something cold and predatory. He stood there with a smile on his face, but his eyes… his eyes reflected nothing.
No joy, no amusement just emptiness.
"Who are you?" Sylvia demanded, her voice steadier than she felt. Her eyes darted around the cell, searching for exits, for weapons, for anything she could use.
Concrete walls on all sides. A single door behind Glen. There are no windows no other way out. She was trapped in there.
"Who am I?" Glen or whoever he really was tilted his head like he was genuinely considering the question. "You know, I don't really know anymore. I've worn so many faces, used so many names…" He spread his arms in a mockery of openness. "I'm whoever I need to be. Today, I was Glen, the desperate brother. Yesterday, I was a merchant.
Tomorrow?" He shrugged. "Who knows?"
Sylvia's breathing quickened. Sweat began to bead on her forehead despite the cool air of the cell. She shuffled backward until she was standing over Rudeus's unconscious body, instinctively positioning herself between him and the threat.
Glen laughed a sound devoid of warmth. "There's no way out, you know. Not unless you go through me." His smile widened, showing a row of teeth. "Why don't you give it a try? I'd like to see what you can do."
Sylvia clenched her fists, her mind racing. She needed a weapon.
Her eyes dropped to Rudeus's side, where his sword lay strapped to his belt it was Ghislaine's sword, the one he never let out of his sight.
Without thinking, she lunged for it.
Her hand closed around the hilt and pulled
Rudeus's hand snapped up like a striking snake, his fingers clamping around her wrist with crushing force.
Sylvia gasped in shock and pain, trying to wrench free, but his grip was iron. She looked down at his face, expecting to see him awake, but his eyes were still closed. His breathing remained slow and even, because he was still deeply unconscious.
"Rudeus?" she whispered, her voice cracking.
But he didn't respond. Didn't even twitch. Yet his hand remained locked around her wrist, preventing her from taking the blade. Even unconscious, even trapped in whatever nightmare held him, his body refused to let anyone take the sword from him.
It would have been impressive if it wasn't so terrifying.
Glen's laughter echoed through the cell. "Fascinating, isn't it? The things we cling to, even in sleep. Even when everything else is stripped away."
Sylvia clenched her teeth and yanked her wrist free with a sharp twist a technique her father had taught her for breaking holds. She couldn't use Rudeus's sword. Fine she'd fight with her bare hands if she had to.
She charged at him.
Glen simply stepped aside, making it look effortless. Her fist cut through empty air where his face had been a moment before.
Sylvia didn't stop. She spun, using her momentum to throw a kick at his midsection
She felt nothing but air. She looked around frantically and spotted him on her left, leaning against the wall like he'd been there the whole time.
The moment her foot touched the ground, she pivoted and sent a lightning-fast left hook toward his jaw.
He moved his head slightly, and her fist sailed past, missing by inches.
Sylvia's eyes widened. The difference in their abilities was staggering. She wasn't some amateur but her hand-to-hand might not be her strongest skill, but she'd trained hard. She was intermediate level in the Sword God Style, had decent speed and power behind her strikes.
But Glen was making her look like a child play fighting.
She attacked again, throwing a combination jab, cross, hook, uppercut each strike faster than the last, each one aimed with precision at vital points.
Glen dodged them all with minimal movement, his expression growing progressively more bored.
"You know," he said conversationally, weaving under a roundhouse kick that should have taken his head off, "I could've killed you thirty-two times already in this fight."
The casual statement made Sylvia's blood boil. Anger flooded through her, anger at being trapped, at being tricked, at her own helplessness, at what they'd done to Rudeus.
She roared and unleashed everything she had. Punches, kicks, elbows, knees a relentless assault that would have overwhelmed some opponents.
Glen's expression shifted to something like disappointment. "This is no fun," he muttered, effortlessly sidestepping her attacks. "You should just go to sleep." He moved.
One moment he was three feet away. The next, he was directly in front of her, his hand already in motion.
Sylvia tried to react, tried to block or dodge, but she was far too slow.
His palm struck her solar plexus not hard enough to injure, but precisely placed to knock the wind from her lungs. While she gasped for air, his other hand came up and pressed two fingers against her forehead.
"Sleep," he said simply.
And despite every ounce of will screaming at her to stay conscious, to keep fighting, Sylvia felt darkness rushing up to claim her.
The last thing she saw before her vision went black was Rudeus's still form lying on the cold cell floor. Then she saw the open door of the cell..
Pain, that was all Rudeus knew anymore. Pain and humiliation and the endless cycle of torment that defined his existence in this place.
He was on his knees on hard stone, his head bowed. Blood dripped from his nose, pooling on the ground beneath him. He didn't remember when the bleeding had started. Time had lost all meaning here.
Footsteps approached it was slow. each one making his heart clench with dread. He looked up.
Eris stood over him, her face twisted in disgust and rage. She looked exactly as she had the last time he'd seen her red hair wild, golden eyes blazing. But this version of her was crueler,m.This version existed only to hurt him.
She spat in his face.
The saliva hit his cheek and slowly dripped down. Rudeus didn't wipe it away. He deserved it. Deserved so much worse.
"Worthless," Eris hissed, her voice dripping with contempt. "Absolutely fucking worthless."
"I'm sorry," Rudeus whispered, his voice hoarse from screaming. He pressed his forehead to the cold stone. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry—"
Eris laughed a harsh, bitter sound that cut like glass. "You should be. You know what you did to me. What I lost because of you." She grabbed a fistful of his hair and yanked his head up, forcing him to look at her. "Say it. Tell me what you did."
Rudeus flinched, trying to look away, but her grip was too strong.
"I said LOOK AT ME!" She shook him violently.
"I… I abandoned you," he choked out. "I left when you needed me. I was a coward. I was—"
"You were supposed to protect me!" Eris screamed directly into his face, specks of her saliva hitting his skin. "You were supposed to be there! But you ran away like the pathetic, worthless piece of shit you are!"
She shoved him down. Rudeus hit the ground hard, the impact jarring his already battered body. Before he could even think about getting up, Eris was on top of him, straddling his stomach, her weight pressing down on his chest.
"I'll make you pay," she whispered, her face slowly moving toward his. "I'll make you suffer for every moment of pain you caused me."
Her face came closer. Closer… Their lips were inches apart, her breath was hot against his skin. Rudeus's heart hammered in confusion and terror was she going to kiss him? Hit him? What—
Her hands closed around his throat. "You perverted piece of shit!" she snarled, squeezing.
Then she started hitting him. Her fists rained down on his face once, twice, three times. Each impact sent explosions of pain through his skull. Blood filled his mouth. His vision blurred.
But he didn't fight back. Couldn't fight back. He deserved this. Deserved every blow, every insult, every moment of agony.
The world started to fade, the edges of his eyes were going dark from lack of oxygen. Eris's furious face above him became indistinct, just a mass of color and rage.
"STOP!"
The voice cut through everything sharp and anguished.
Eris's assault paused. Rudeus turned his head weakly, blood and tears mixing on his face, and saw her Sylphie.
She stood a few feet away, tears streaming down her face, her hands covering her mouth in horror. She looked exactly as he remembered green hair, kind eyes. But those eyes were now filled with so much pain it made his chest ache.
"Rudy, please," she sobbed, moving toward him. "Please look at me."
No. No, no, no. Not her. Anyone but her.
Rudeus turned his face away, unable to meet her gaze. He couldn't bear to see the disappointment in her eyes, the realization that he was everything terrible she'd feared he might become.
"Rudy!" Her voice broke on his name. She was kneeling beside him now, her hands hovering over him but not quite touching, like she was afraid of what she might find.
"Please, just look at me. That's all I'm asking."
He squeezed his eyes shut, shutting out her tear-stained face.
Sylphie let out a sound somewhere between a sob and a scream. Then her small fist connected with his shoulder. "Look at me!" She hit him again.
"LOOK AT ME!"
But Rudeus kept his eyes closed, kept his face turned away. If he didn't look, maybe she'd leave. Maybe she wouldn't have to see what he'd become.
She kept hitting him not hard enough to really hurt, but each impact carried the weight of her heartbreak and suffering. Her sobs grew louder with each strike.
"You know what we should do, Sylphie?" Eris's voice cut through the crying, cold and calculating. "We should suffocate him. Put him out of his misery like the pathetic dog he is."
Rudeus's eyes snapped open in panic. "No, wait—"
But Sylphie was nodding, tears still flowing but her expression hardening. "You're right. If he won't even look at me, if he won't acknowledge what he's done… then what's the point?"
"Sylphie, please—" Rudeus tried to speak, but Eris's hand clamped over his mouth.
Sylphie stood and positioned herself above him.
"I'm sorry, Rudy," she whispered, fresh tears falling onto his face. "But I can't watch you suffer like this anymore." She sat on his face.
Rudeus's world became darkness and pressure. He couldn't breathe. Eris was still on his stomach, her weight crushing his diaphragm. Sylphie above, cutting off his air entirely. He thrashed, tried to buck them off, but they were immovable.
His lungs screamed for oxygen. His vision what little he could see through the fabric went from dark to darker. Panic clawed at his mind like a living thing.
This is how I die, he thought with strange clarity. Killed by the people I loved most.
His struggles weakened. The panic faded, replaced by a strange numbness. The edges of consciousness began to fray.
Maybe this is better, he thought as everything started to go black. Maybe I deserve
It stopped.
All of it. The weight, the pressure, the suffocation gone in an instant.
Rudeus gasped desperately, air flooding back into his starved lungs. He coughed and sputtered, rolling onto his side, his whole body shaking.
When his vision finally cleared, he wasn't on the stone floor anymore.
He was standing in a vast white void. No walls, no ceiling, no floor that he could distinguish from anything else. Just infinite, blinding whiteness stretching in every direction.
And silence. Complete, absolute silence that pressed against his eardrums like physical weight.
Rudeus's breath came in ragged gasps. His brain felt like it was trembling inside his skull, vibrating at a frequency that shouldn't be possible.
Then he heard it a voice, distant and distorted, like it was being filtered through water or static.
One word, barely audible:
"…suzi…"
Suzi? What did that mean? Who
The white void shattered like glass.
Rudeus's eyes snapped open.
He was lying on cold stone in a dark cell, He lay perfectly still for several moments, afraid that any movement might send him spiraling back into that nightmare.
Slowly, carefully, he felt himself his chest, his arms, his face.
He felt the ground beneath him. Was it Concrete or stone?
Then he felt for the familiar weight on his left side. Ghislaine's sword was still there, still strapped to his belt.
Something inside him loosened slightly. If he had the sword.
Rudeus slowly pushed himself up into a sitting position, his single arm shaking with the effort. His head pounded and his vision swam, but he forced himself to focus.
He was in a cell. The door was… open?
That didn't make sense. Why would they leave it open?
He sat there for a long while minutes? hours? waiting for something to happen. For guards to rush in, for the dream to start again, for some new torture to begin. Nothing came.
Just silence and the open door, like an invitation or a test.
Finally, moving with excruciating slowness, Rudeus got to his feet. His legs felt weak, unstable, like he'd been lying down for days. Maybe he had been. He had no idea how long he'd been trapped in that nightmare.
He took one step toward the door. Then another.
Each movement felt surreal, like he might wake up at any moment and find himself back on that stone floor with Eris and Sylphie above him.
But he didn't wake up. The door remained open. The corridor beyond remained dark and empty.
Rudeus stepped out of the cell, his hand instinctively moving to rest on his sword hilt. The familiar grip was comforting.
He stood in the corridor, trying to decide which direction to go, when he heard it a scream.
A feminine scream filled with pain and terror.
A/N: Ngl I don't remember if sylphie hair ever turned white if it did oh well it's green now been a year+ since I wrote volume 1 and I don't feel like going back