“I fight you not as your daughter, Zero! But as the villain you’ve wanted me to be, Dawn Dahia!”

  “Zero! No….Dawn! I–”

  Dawn cut him short by dashing forward and swinging her sword horizontally. He quickly back-stepped, but the slice left a trail of fire and blood in the air. After half a second, it detonated, and he went flying backward over to where No.1 stood.

  “Grgh!”

  I walked forward until I was next to Zero. I couldn’t help but smile at this recent turn of events.

  “Dawn….like a rising sun, I think it suits you.”

  Her face turned red, and she grabbed my ear and started pulling it.

  “Ow….ow! Ow! Stop!”

  “D-D-Don’t overanalyze my name! I-I don’t need you telling me how amazing my name is, I already know!”

  “Ok…fine! Fine! Let go of my ear!”

  She let go and started laughing at me. Once she settled down, a warm and gentle smile that shone just as bright as the moon appeared on her face.

  “Thank you for the compliment, really. Hearing that from someone I really care about makes it mean so much more.”

  “Ah…yeah.”

  “Ooooh, are you blushing?” Zero said as she started to poke my cheek with an annoyingly triumphant grin.

  “This is why I don’t give you compliments.” I said, unable to look at her face.

  “Hehehe! Sure, sure.”

  She stood forward and looked at Zagra, who was regaining his bearings, and No.1, who was helping him up. Her eyes glowed with new determination as she clenched her sword tighter.

  “If I wanna keep teasing you like this, we both have to get out of here. We’ll have to defeat them, or we’ll just be on the run forever.”

  I nodded my head in response. Even if we were to escape from here, they most likely would hunt us down. To take No.5 and No.9 with us would also be a great deal of effort if we were being chased; our only option is to fight.

  “So, what’s the plan 963?” She asked, returning to her serious expression once more.

  “We separate them. No.1 can act as the perfect support if they stay together. He can hinder us with no fear of pain or repercussions due to his ability; we have to make sure he doesn’t join up with Zagra.”

  “I’ll handle my da–I mean Zagra. If I go running off, he’ll put catching me ahead of beating you. You just have to deal with No.1. But if anyone can, it’d be you.”

  “Alright, good luck. Let’s both get out of this, together.”

  She nodded her head and ran east of the facility. To the east was a large stretch of land with few obstacles or impediments. I turned around and ran to the west, where a dense forest lay in wait.

  “Sir, they’re splitting up. What should I do?”

  He stood up and paid my direction no mind, as he watched Dawn run to the east.

  “You handle the boy….this is a family matter.”

  “Very well.” He said, unable to hide his grin.

  Zagra kicked off from his position and chased after Zero with fire swirling all around his legs. No.1, on the other hand, ran in the same direction I was, and picked up his gun in the process.

  “Looks like it’s just you and me, 963!” He yelled as he aimed his gun at me.

  In response, I put two of my fingers together and extended my left arm. While running, I swirled particles at the tip of them, and used my right arm to hold onto my left shoulder as a brace.

  We both fired at the same time, and his shot whizzed by my cheek. I had missed mine entirely and was steadying my arm for the next one, until I noticed we were getting close to the brush of the forest. There were a plethora of trees I could use as cover, but it would mean the same thing for him as well.

  I aimed upwards and shot at a large branch near the opening of the forest. No.1, without hesitation, looked toward where I shot to see a large branch falling toward him.

  “Ah darn.” He sighed haphazardly.

  The branch fell on him as I used the momentary distraction to get deeper into the forest. With this much cover, I could take him by surprise and gain the upper hand instantly. I pushed past the brush and maneuvered through the dark forest. Tensing my muscles, I moved with little sound as I crept toward the area where I expected him to be.

  After waiting about 30 seconds, I heard the crunch of leaves to the north of me. I waited until the footsteps got closer before darting out and firing a shot at him. It had connected, and I created a small hole in his abdomen.

  “There you are.”

  With no reaction, he aimed in my direction and fired. Seeing it coming, I dived beforehand behind a tree, and the shot narrowly missed my left arm. Using the tree as cover, I peeked around the other side of the tree and fired at him again. He made no attempt to avoid it and merely turned in the direction the shot came from as the shot went through his leg. He aimed his gun once more and fired continuous shots in my direction, until I noticed steam rising from the gun.

  I jumped from cover and aimed in his direction, but in that short time, he had disappeared. His laughing echoed throughout the forest as I attempted to pinpoint his location.

  “Let’s talk for a moment. You’re not gonna find me anyway.” He said as a shot whizzed by my ear. I immediately ducked under cover and began to charge energy.

  “I’m sorry? It doesn’t seem like you want to talk.”

  “Now, now. You can multi-task, can’t you? And by fighting slower, I’m giving you the time you need to analyze what to do next. Aren’t I nice? Indulge me for a moment and listen.” He said loudly.

  I tried to pinpoint his voice to catch him, but the forest was too dense.

  The more he talks, the easier it will be to find him.

  “I can practically see the gears turning in your head right now, but that’s fine. This is something I need to tell you before we continue.” He said, as I heard the crunching of leaves in front of me. I faced forward and ducked as a shot flew by my head. I fired a counter-shot, but he was already gone.

  “Damn it! Enough with the cheap shots!” I shouted, hearing a branch from above me creak downward. I looked up, and he was staring at me with a blank expression, his eyes glowing in the darkness.

  “My name is Desdemona Letzte. You may know me as No.1, the leader of the subjects here, but more formally, I am designated as Zagra Dahia’s apprentice.” He said in a serious tone.

  All of my thoughts ceased as he gave me this information.

  “What? You… wait. That means-”

  “Yes. Unlike every other number here, I came here of my own free will. More specifically, I was sent here to not only monitor Dr. Verrat, but to keep any subjects from escaping. By any means necessary.”

  I snapped out of my stupor and fired a shot at the branch. It fell, and he jumped to higher ground before he lost his footing, disappearing in the darkness.

  “.....Why are you telling me this?” I asked, attempting to listen to any sounds across the forest as I changed positions.

  “That’s not really what I wanted to tell you, but it’s important that you have context to understand.”

  “Then what?”

  “Before I became Zagra’s apprentice. I lived in a well-furnished house with my two loving parents. Unlike most people, I awakened to my gift from birth. From the very moment I was born on this planet, I was cursed with this ability. I’m sure you’re smart enough to realize why there are fewer benefits to this gift than drawbacks?” He said, jumping across the treetops.

  This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

  “Usually I’d agree, but after fighting against you, I’d beg to differ,” I responded, firing three shots at the trees above me.

  “Haha! If I were in your position, I think I’d say the same thing. But….if I could turn back time, I think I would prevent myself from being born.” He said softly, just loud enough for me to hear as I heard the rustling of branches above me.

  I looked up, and he was directly above, attempting to stomp me to the ground. I rolled out of the way, but he quickly got up and slashed with the blade at the hilt of his gun. I formed a hand blade and clashed with him, as he continued speaking with a smile on his face.

  “My ability grants me benefits that many people would dream of. I can’t die….But I have gotten close, so let’s just say I’m really hard to kill. I’m immune to all poisons and diseases, and I learned that my blood can act as a healing agent for medicine. However, there’s one drawback to this ability.” He grunted as I broke through his clash and slashed his hand open. He took a step back and held the hand that I just cut up.

  “You already know I can’t feel pain, but it goes far deeper than that. I can’t feel anything. I can’t taste anything either, but that’s not as bad. The sensation of grass on your feet, playing in the water, air rushing by your hair, I can’t feel any of it. The world around me is pretty much white space. And that includes emotions as well.”

  He looked at his slowly regenerating hand with dull, lifeless eyes.

  “I tried everything. I tried burning and freezing parts of my body, but nothing. I then tried cutting off my own limbs, but nothing. My logic was that if I could feel pain, I could feel fear and anger.” He sighed, turning the dial on his gun and blasting a smoke bomb right in front of me. By the time I could see again, he was gone, yet I could still hear his voice.

  “So then, I tried to appeal to my emotions. We had a pet cat, who would always love rubbing up to me. A very playful one at that. Of course, I could never feel its affection, both physically or emotionally, but with my flawed logic I thought that since I spent so much time with it…..deep down I would feel something.” He murmured, his voice coming from directly behind the tree I was in front of. I ducked to the ground as a yellow beam pierced through the tree, right where my head was.

  “So I killed it.” He said, tapping his gun as he stepped out from behind the tree. “ I stabbed it 46 times, and I thought that if I could feel compelled to stop counting, then I would feel the sadness. But I never did. I kept counting, and counting, and counting. It wasn't until my parents came and stopped me when they heard the cat screaming.” He sighed, sitting down on the ground. I immediately rolled upright and fired 2 shots at him, but he just took them like it was nothing and remained in his position.

  “Do you ever shut up?” I said, shaking the stray energy from my hand.

  “My parents tried everything. A mental health group, a therapist, is making me interact with other kids. But nothing worked. “I feel nothing” is the phrase I’ve said more times than anybody could keep track of. The only one at this point who wasn’t afraid of me was my nanny.” He explained, ignoring me and haphazardly firing a shot at me, looking uninterested. I moved my head out of the way as it flew by, piercing another tree behind me as I stared down at him. He had dropped his gun and was just staring at me lifelessly.

  “So…when I turned 9, my nanny convinced my parents to attend a party she set up for me. You see, they wanted nothing to do with me and let my nanny take care of all of my needs. Everyone gathered around the cake, and I blew out the candles…..when I did I–”

  “You killed the nanny, didn’t you?”

  He shook his head and shrugged.

  “I can see why you’d think that, but I didn’t want to repay the care she had given me by killing her. Just because I couldn't feel doesn’t mean I couldn’t understand basic morality.”

  “If you understood basic morality, you wouldn’t even be here talking to me right now. You’d be somewhere else entirely.”

  “Regardless, she turned the lights off so I could blow out the candles on the cake, but I had a knife in my pocket. The second I blew out the candles, I stabbed both my mother and father while their vision was impaired.”

  “Why, though? What purpose would that even serve? There are-”

  “No benefits? I thought the exact same thing. But I still couldn’t help myself. If there was a chance I could feel something, I would take it. I thought that killing my parents would tug at my heartstrings, or seeing my nanny’s reaction would trigger something, but neither worked. All it resulted in was my nanny running off and calling the authorities, and me being incarcerated at the age of 9. That’s when I met him.”

  “You don’t mean….”

  “Yes, I met Zagra. Apparently, the therapist was a close associate of his, and I had garnered his interest. After about 6 months, I was released from my prison, and he took me to this training area. He told me that he would help me feel something. I didn’t believe him, of course, so I told him to try as hard as he could.” He said, rolling his hand around.

  His hands and eyes started trembling as a smile formed on his lips.

  “That day, I felt something. When his flames burned me, I could feel it charring my flesh. The scorching agony of each of my individual cells being vaporized, unable to regenerate. The rush of heat flowing by my face, and the fear I felt for the first time in my life. It was amazing, and at that moment I knew that if I followed this man I would come to understand even more emotions… and I was right.” He said, suddenly standing up and punching me before I could react.

  “Argh!”

  “We’re the same, 963. You and I are exactly the same, yet you found a hidden path on the same road I took. This is why I’m telling you this!” He yelled, reeling back another punch, but I caught it and elbowed him in the nose. He stumbled backwards and smiled, putting both of his hands up.

  “When I first saw you in this facility, you had the same dull eyes I saw in myself when I looked in the mirror way back then.” He started, crossing his hand over his nose as it healed instantly.

  “Not due to suffering, or a hatred for the world like others, but from a realization. An epiphany that made you realize how useless other people were, how the world we live in is so dull. It makes you feel like you’re the only real human. Alone, only focusing on survival, because you felt that this world was such a place where focusing on anyone but oneself would lead to something worse than death. Chains. Being shackled to live on someone else’s whim, or just society as a whole. Because if the world were such a wonderful place, you wouldn’t have ended up here, right?”

  He brandished his arms out and looked up into the sky.

  “There are countless kids and adults who have grown up in terrible environments, or had terrible conditions! In my short life, I’ve seen so many different types! Yet the only one who had the same eyes as me was you! Then I began to think, what if there’s a way to break free of my condition? He doesn’t have the side effect of my gift, yet he ended up with the same result! Does that mean if this is a choice one can inherently make, did I doom myself by coming to that realization at such an early age?! So once again, I sought to get an answer.”

  He pointed to himself and grinned. “All of the strife you’ve been put through in the facility was because of me. The torture, the tournament, even that fight with Zagra. Now, I didn’t expect you all to go into the Forbidden Area that soon, so this wasn’t on purpose. But inspecting that place and finding out you disabled the monster I released a few days prior was astounding! Where did it even go? I didn’t find a corpse or anything! Yet that dull look in your eye had faded, and it was replaced with a glimmer of hope. You had found something to hold onto, something that reattached you to this world.”

  “Desdemona.”

  He stopped rambling and looked at me.

  “The answer you're seeking, how I regained my 'hope' you called it? I don’t have it. I never did in the first place. However, I can say something as someone who fought with you at every turn, and as the only one who’s heard your story.”

  He stared in silence, waiting expectantly for my answer.

  “I understand. It pains me to admit it, but everything you’ve said I understand. I’m no saint. If I were in your exact situation, with your condition, I would have done the same things you’ve done. And because of that, I’m sure that if you were brought to the facility like I was, you would’ve gone through the same things I have. But it’s precisely because I understand that I hate you. Through my time here, seeing how some people can shine so bright made me realize how ugly and terrible I am. How I am is something I can’t control, and that fact makes me all the more bitter. Seeing you is like seeing a reflection of myself uninhibited by the world around me, and it only makes me realize my own shortcomings.” I said, turning my hand into a finger gun, charging energy at the tip.

  “I see, is that how you feel? Truly?” He responded blankly, picking up and pointing his gun in response.

  “Yes. Truly.”

  We stood there in silence for a brief moment, until we both dove and fired at the same time. I couldn’t help but grin at the ludicrousness of this battle, and it seemed he felt the same way. He rolled and tried to fire another shot, but the gun started steaming once more.

  “Tch! No wonder it’s a prototype.” He said as he began fiddling with the gun.

  Now!

  He flipped the gun, and the curved blade from earlier popped out once more. I dashed toward him until I was within his attack range, which prompted him to slice at my neck with the blade. I dropped down to the grass to avoid it and placed my hands on the ground. Using them, I tilted forward and pushed off while extending my legs to land a double-footed kick on the gun in his hand. I already knew that no amount of force would make him drop the gun, but if I were to kick the gun out of his hand, I could disarm him.

  The gun flew out of his hand, and while he looked up in surprise, I landed and bent my knees to deliver another attack. I jumped forward and planted both of my feet into his chest. On the point of impact, I swirled particles at the soles of my feet and dispersed them violently, creating a small burst from where I hit him.

  My empowered attack sent him flying back into a small clearing illuminated by moonlight. I stepped through the forest into the clearing myself as he began to stand up.

  “In such a short time, you got real good with that gift of yours.” He scoffed, sliding to a halt and brushing himself off.

  “I suppose. Yet you’ve remained the same. Without your weapon, all you are is an annoying punching bag.” I smirked, flexing my wrists.

  We began walking around the clearing, keeping a certain distance from each other. Looking and studying for any weaknesses to exploit.

  “If I’m so powerless without my weapon, why don’t you come close and attack? Are you scared?” He taunted, keeping a certain distance.

  “For someone so confident in his regeneration, you’re also keeping your distance. Are you worried that I'll find your weakness?” I taunted back, clenching my fingers.

  “You’re unusually talkative today. The sick kid rubbed off on you, it seems.” He shrugged, shaking his head.

  I stopped walking and tightened all my fingers together. Drawing the particles toward them, it formed a blue blade extending from my fingertips as I got into a ready stance.

  “You’re right…..enough banter.”

  He fiercely stomped on the ground and shifted his legs. He moved his hands and got into an open-palm stance, with a confident smile plastered on his face.

  “Let’s get serious, shall we?”