The faint light of dawn was just beginning to filter through the window when her eyelids slowly opened. No start. No gesture of confusion. Just an unnatural calm, like the surface of a deep lake before a storm.
Tokura Yoshi... no. The Tokugawa Hideyoshi reborn exhaled softly, without the slightest strain on his face.
-Ah... at last," he whispered to himself, stretching his arms above his head with a contented yawn. It's been so long since I had such a pleasant nap....
He craned his neck from side to side, listening to the small creaks in his body as he felt the slight ache in his muscles like a familiar caress. He lay back again, staring up at the ceiling as if gazing at the sky of another world.
-Perhaps... I should thank them," he said in a soft voice, though laced with venom. Them... my dear new pets.
His smile twisted slowly, becoming darker. More intimate. More his own.
-I will thank you... accordingly," he continued, licking his lips with an almost ritualistic slowness. With another night of... lots and lots and lots and lots of love.
He remembered then. Every sigh. Every shudder. Every broken gaze. He had explored every nook and cranny of their bodies, every tremor as he drove them mad, every restrained scream. And he hadn't forgotten to love every part of them.
Yoshi - or what was left of him - remembered them for a moment. Their bodies collapsed, their expressions empty and full at the same time. A perfect spectacle.
-They don't know it yet... but this was only their first lesson.
He got out of bed and walked to a mirror. The image it returned to him was not that of a frightened young man. It was that of a demon disguised as a human. The angle of his smile, the impassive fire in his gaze, all spoke of a new nature... an absolute domination.
-No more running away. No more hiding. No more begging. -He moved closer to the mirror, letting his breath fog the glass. From today... this world will belong to me.
He walked to the window, flinging open the curtains. The sun was rising over the horizon, and with it, his determination.
-They will see me. All of them. They will hate me, they will fear me, they will curse me. And yet... they will fall before me. One by one.
He turned his head, casting one last glance at the bed as if imagining the three girls lying in his room. Not as victims. Not as trophies. But as the first witnesses to his awakening.
-Thank you for helping me remember who I really am.
And with that sentence, he dressed slowly, elegantly as in a ritual. Step by step. Cloak, gloves, boots. Like a king getting ready for the coronation.
Because he was no longer a pawn, no longer a secondary villain. He was the protagonist of his own tragedy.
And no one... absolutely no one, was prepared for what was to come.