Prologue – "The Knife You Kissed"
Rain pattered softly against the windows, the kind of sound Ren Saeki used to find comforting.
He was slumped in a leather chair, alone in his private study. Books lined the walls, monitors blinked with quiet warnings, and a half-filled glass of aged whiskey trembled in his limp fingers. His body felt heavy—numb, almost.
Poison.
He realized it slowly, like ice crawling through his veins.
"…Ah."
His vision blurred. The golden lights of his penthouse smeared like bleeding oil on glass. He tried to stand, but the world tilted. His knees buckled.
Who?
His mind searched the possibilities. Countless enemies. Hundreds who would love to see him dead. But none had access to his food, his wine, his medicine—
A sound.
Footsteps. Familiar ones. Light, almost shy.
Then a voice. Gentle. Sweet.
"Brother."
Ren turned his head with the last of his strength. Standing there, framed by the rain-lit doorway, was Akio. His little brother. The boy he'd protected through war, through famine, through the end of the world.
Ren's eyes widened. "You…?"
Akio didn't deny it. He stepped closer, kneeling beside him.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. "You were always going to be in the way. Everything… everything you built—I need it. I deserve it."
Ren tried to speak, but only blood reached his lips.
Akio smiled.
"Sleep well, Brother."
Darkness swallowed him whole.
Chapter 1 – "Welcome Back to the Cage"
Pain.
Not the searing, sharp kind. No, this was dull—throbbing behind his eyes, pressing in his temples like someone had cracked open his skull and stitched it back together.
Ren groaned. His eyes fluttered open.
Ceiling fan?
The ugly, plastic thing spun lazily above him. A cracked poster of some anime girl was taped to the wall. The sheets below him felt cheap. Thin. He looked around—
A tiny dorm room.
The smell of old textbooks. Faint laundry detergent. His old phone on the desk, still cracked in the corner. The calendar on the wall read:
March 5th, 20XX.
Fifteen years ago.
He sat up, heart pounding.
"No. No, no, no…"
This had to be a dream. A coma fantasy. Delirium.
He stumbled to the mirror. Stared.
His face.
Younger. No scars. No gray in the hair. Eyes not yet dead from war.
Silence flooded his ears.
Then—
The memory came back like a knife to the spine.
Akio's face. That voice. The smile.
"I deserve it."
Ren clutched the sink as bile rose in his throat. His breath hitched, and for a brief moment, there was raw, unfiltered emotion on his face.
Confusion. Grief. Rage.
Then it all drained.
Like a shutter slamming down behind his eyes.
The mask slid into place.
His voice, when he finally spoke, was flat. Icy.
"So… I died. And the one I trusted most put the knife in."
He looked into the mirror. At the eyes that had once believed in people. In hope.
Not anymore.
"Fine. You took everything from me once, Akio.
Now I'll take everything from you—and more."