"Ugh. You ruined my tie."
His voice was flat, almost indifferent, as if the damage to his suit mattered more than the fist that had struck him.
I had hit him clean—center mass, no hesitation—but the impact felt wrong from the moment it landed.
It was like hitting something that only resembled a person.
"You're getting out of your place," Lloyd said quietly.
"Let's finish this quickly."
He moved.
Not fast in the way humans understood speed, but in a way that made speed irrelevant altogether.
It wasn't that he crossed the distance—it was that the space between him and Carlos simply ceased to matter.
One moment he stood still, and the next his fist was already embedded in Carlos's body.
There was a suspended silence where even the air seemed unsure how to react.
Carlos froze, his body locking around Lloyd's arm as instinct failed to process what had just happened.
With a raw, desperate roar, Carlos seized Lloyd's head and drove him into the ground with everything he had left.
The earth collapsed inward, as if it had been waiting for that moment to give way.
Carlos stumbled back immediately afterward, already unraveling. Blood poured in uneven pulses, his balance gone, his breathing no longer aligned with his movements.
He was running out of coherence faster than strength.
I can't use repulsion magic... He's clearly stronger than me!
Daggers...? No—he'll just catch them and throw them right at me.
That just leaves... The chain.
I saw the opening.
I moved.
But the moment I committed, the world stopped me.
Pressure—an invisible weight that collapsed onto my chest and halted my momentum entirely.
My body simply refused to continue, as if the space itself had decided I was no longer allowed forward.
Lloyd was already there.
My chains were caught mid-swing. With a single pull, he redirected my movement completely.
The world tilted violently as I was thrown through the air like something without weight or meaning.
The ground hit harder than the fall itself. My perception fractured for a moment, edges of vision breaking apart before snapping back unevenly.
Before I could recover, weight followed.
His boot came down on me. Not immediately crushing but—slowly and deliberately increasing pressure until my ribs began to resist.
Something slipped from my grasp.
My blade.
Gone.
CLINK
The chains around me loosened, their tension dissolving as if they had lost instruction.
My body remained pinned beneath him, uncertain whether to fight or shut down.
"How does it feel," Lloyd said, his voice now directly above me, close enough that direction no longer mattered,
"to die by your own weapon?"
Warmth gathered in my chest, spreading in a way that resembled familiar pain.
"Shameful, right?" he said, and then—
He lunged the blade even deeper.
My thoughts began to drift away from my body, disconnecting in slow fragments.
The alley…
The campfire…
…Rose?
My hand moved without permission.
It found his face.
Should I choke him…?
No—it would be much easier.
For him.
My fingers locked onto his temples as my collapsing body forced one final action.
[Memory Synchronisation Initiated]
"See it," I forced out, blood spilling with every word.
"All of it… you piece of shit."
The moment the connection formed, something broke open.
Not in me. In him.
Lloyd went completely still.
There was no resistance.
No fragmentation.
Only full, uninterrupted descent into everything I had ever been.
My memories did not touch him like fragments.
They entered like a flood.
The alley.
The firelight.
Pain, choices, deaths, names I had buried—everything unfolded inside him without filter, without mercy.
For the first time, Lloyd's expression did not follow control.
It stalled.
Comprehension. Too much of it.
A second presence tried to form. I reached for his mind instinctively.
To see him back.
To take something.
But there was nothing.
As if something higher than him refused even the concept of being observed.
[Access Denied]
[Cause: Celestial Beings]
My connection snapped instantly.
I couldn't see anything.
Just silence where his mind should have been...
"You…" His voice changed slightly, not louder or weaker, but recalibrated.
"How are you stil moving after that…?"
He stepped back.
I exhaled shakily, my body already failing to maintain structural continuity. Every breath felt like it belonged to someone else.
"I can't let you die yet," he said after a moment. His tone smoothed itself again, as if the disruption had been filed away.
"You've seen too much."
He tilted his head slightly, studying me with renewed precision.
"I would like to hear more about your 'previous life.'"
Then he stepped forward again, slower this time, as if certainty had been replaced by measured caution.
"Come closer."
I spat.
It struck his cheek and slid downward slowly.
He did not react immediately. He simply remained still, allowing it to remain there for a moment longer than necessary, as if examining the act itself rather than the insult.
Then he wiped it away.
"…Even now," he said quietly, "you insist on something so inefficient."
His heel came down.
The force was exact. My body folded under it with delayed consequence, pain arriving a fraction later and spreading outward through my ribs.
A broken breath escaped me.
"I said I wouldn't kill you," Lloyd said evenly. "Don't confuse that with restraint."
Something moved through the air.
A card struck my face.
Its edges were too clean for this place, untouched by ash or blood. It felt wrong in the aftermath of violence, as if it didn't belong to the same reality.
"You're invited," he said.
"To my palace."
A pause—final, not dramatic.
"…You'll be treated appropriately."
"…Probably."
He turned away.
"I'll... Kill you—I'll kill you—you bastard." It wasn't out of hatred, but out of pure desparation.
For a moment he paused.
"I'd love to see you try." A grin.
The fire shifted, bending subtly around his movement as if acknowledging something it couldn't oppose.
The world itself seemed to adjust to him rather than resist.
As he walked, his voice returned once more, quieter now.
"…So this is what it is."
Another pause.
"…Love."
A final word followed, detached from meaning itself.
"Strange."