Kaiden never imagined the world would end in fluorescent lights and a cold office chair.
Not the kind of ending you'd expect for someone like him — sharp-suited, silver-tongued, smarter than everyone else in the damn room. At least, that's what he told himself every morning in the mirror, fixing a tie he never liked and walking into a job he never respected.
"I'm letting you go, Kaiden."
His manager's voice still echoed, dull and trembling behind fake concern. A man with a head shaped like a potato, skin stretched too tight over guiltless features. Kaiden didn't even hear the rest — not the speech, not the apology, not the HR rep trying to look empathetic. Just those words.
Letting him go.
As if he were a broken vending machine.
Kaiden walked out without a word. No yelling. No last word. Just silence. The kind of silence that curdles in your chest until it hardens into something sharp.
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He drank. Cheap stuff. From a convenience store across the street. First bottle burned his throat. Second barely registered. The third? That one made him feel something. Not better. Just… blurred.
Somehow, his legs carried him to the train station. The kind with bright artificial lights, rows of vending machines, and plastic seats bolted to the floor. The world was spinning sideways, but he stood still in the middle of the platform, a bottle still clutched in one hand.
And then he saw him.
The manager. Same cheap coat. Same punchable expression.
Kaiden's lips twisted. His stomach boiled. His pride, drunk and trembling, stood up tall for one last stupid act.
"You—You think you can just fire me and walk away?" he slurred, voice echoing.
The manager turned, eyes widening.
Kaiden didn't wait.
He ran.
Well, tried to.
His body was too slow, too drunk. Feet staggered over the yellow warning tiles. People were yelling now — the noise drowned under the screech of something far off. The manager side-stepped like he saw it coming from a mile away.
Kaiden's foot caught the edge of the platform.
And then…
The lights of the oncoming train painted the inside of his eyelids in a blinding white.
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But the white didn't last.
It never does.
Instead, there was something else — a screaming pain ripping through every fiber of his body. Like his nerves had been stripped and soaked in acid. He tried to move. Tried to scream. But his mouth felt wrong. His chest burned. His limbs…
They weren't his.
A voice cut through the pain. Low. Unnatural. Unwelcome.
"It lives. The soul is intact."
"The transplant held. Core stable. Power flow… acceptable."
"Excellent. Weapon K-01... awaken."
Kaiden's eyes snapped open.
Ceiling. Stone. Pipes. Faint red glow.
His arms weren't arms — they were jagged mechanical constructs, fused where his flesh once was. His leg was gone, replaced with some crude artificial thing that hissed every time it moved. Tubes pulsed across his body, threading metal through meat. His chest was half-exposed, some kind of engine core glowing where his heart used to beat.
He tried to scream, but all that came out was a hoarse, raspy croak.
"Do not move," another voice said. Commanding. Cold. Powerful.
Kaiden turned his head.
Standing before him was a creature out of a nightmare. Cloaked in heavy robes, skin cracked like burnt stone, horns spiraling from his skull. Eyes like dying coals.
A demon.
"You are in the realm of Dyrmont. We retrieved your broken body from the veil of death. You were reforged. Reborn."
Kaiden blinked. His breathing quickened. His pride flared.
"Reforged? You butchered me."
"You were shattered. Useless. We gave you strength. Purpose. In return, you will serve the Demon Lord as his blade."
Kaiden glared, even as his mechanical body spasmed with sparks. "I don't serve anyone. Least of all a damn demon with a god complex."
The demon's brow twitched.
"You think you still have a choice?"
Kaiden smirked. "You put me back together because you needed me. That means I'm valuable. And if I'm valuable…"
He lifted his head higher, even as the metal groaned beneath him.
"You don't own me."
The demon stared for a long moment.
Then, he lifted a clawed hand and snapped his fingers.
Kaiden's body locked.
A scream ripped from his throat as every mechanical nerve lit up with fire. He couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. His thoughts slowed — hijacked, overwritten. Pain surged through his spine like lightning bolted into iron.
"We own your core," the demon said. "You will kneel. Or you will die again — slower."
The pain stopped.
Kaiden collapsed to the stone floor, panting, twitching. A machine gasping for air it no longer needed.
The demon leaned down, speaking low:
"Remember this lesson, Weapon K-01. You are alive because we allow it. You are free only when we decide you are."
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Later, locked inside a cold chamber, Kaiden sat in the corner, head down.
But not broken.
His fingers — metal, spindly things — clenched slowly.
The demon thought pain would break him.
But pain was nothing new.
He looked down at his chest — at the faint thump of something human still trying to beat beneath the steel.
"I'll play your game," he whispered. "I'll march. I'll kill. I'll obey."
His lips curled into a sharp, hateful grin.
"But one day… I'll make you all regret putting me back together."