The warm water cascaded down in a heavy, rhythmic pulse, filling the small bathroom with a thick blanket of steam. Five-year-old Albion stood motionless under the showerhead, his palm pressed flat against the slick tiles to steady himself against the beat of the spray.
Damp, silky-black hair clung to his forehead, framing his cheekbones before brushing lightly against the nape of his neck.
Water trickled in steady streams down his face, pooling at his chin before dropping into the ripples swirling around his feet. The bathtub below rang with the quiet, echoing of droplets striking porcelain.
He tilted his head downward. Vivid fuchsia eyes—a sharp, reddish-pink hue that stood out against his pale skin—stared into the drain. The heat hung heavy in the air, wrapping around him as he stood lost in thought, letting the steam wash over him while his mind worked to process the world outside.
Mainly, the problem with Amon.
'I can't give Amon a label. He isn't a friend, an enemy, an ally, or a rival. He's just… someone I can't separate from myself.'
He didn't hate Amon simply because Amon was cruel. He hated him because Amon knew him too well. Every moment of worthlessness, every selfish desire for power, every bitter resentment toward the people who had controlled him—Amon was the sum of every piece of himself Albion desperately wanted to deny.
When Amon stood before him, his existence declared a single truth:
Everything you refuse to acknowledge is me.
Defeating an external threat was simple. But rejecting a piece of his own being was impossible. Amon was the accumulated mass of his own negative emotions. To declare war on Amon meant declaring war on himself—a paradox Albion wasn't ready to face.
'Can I really call him an enemy when he comes from me?'
He thought back to their first meeting. How violent, cruel, and unhinged Amon had seemed.
Yet Albion knew Amon didn't view him as an enemy either. To Amon, Albion wasn't an opponent to be destroyed, but the other half of a shared existence. When Amon humiliated or struck him down, he did so under a single, disturbing logic: he wasn't trying to break Albion. He was trying to force him to evolve.
Amon genuinely believed Albion was incomplete. It was all in the words Amon had spat at him back then.
«Do both of us a favor… Stop underestimating the value of your own life, and stop overestimating the value of everyone else's!»
«I will construct you anew from the ground up.»
Shutting off the water, Albion let out a quiet exhale. He stepped out of the tub, pulled on a fresh pair of clothes, and stood before the mirror.
His skin was fair and clear, devoid of scars or blemishes. Combined with his small frame, it gave him a delicate, untouched look. But none of that mattered to him. He didn't care about his appearance.
'Construct me anew… He said I was a zero who couldn't reach one. But what does "zero" mean?'
After a long silence, he reached a conclusion.
Albion was never a "zero" because he lacked strength or potential. He was zero because he possessed no ownership over himself. He had spent his early life defining his worth through others—mainly the people he used to call his caretakers.
Zero has no self-definition. Living only as an extension of someone else. He looked up, meeting his own reflection.
'Then "one" has to be the birth of an individual. The moment a person can finally say: "I am me. My choices belong to me."'
Back then, he hadn't fully understood Amon's words. It was only now, after everything that had happened, that the past began to make sense.
Amon's desire for absolute power—to stand as a King above all—was simply the corrupted version of Albion's own buried need for value. Having spent his early years treated as an object, his subconscious had birthed an entity governed by a single law: Never again.
Amon sought power so absolute that no one could ever control him again. It was an intensely "Albion" desire, twisted beyond recognition.
'He wants me to stop caring about others. He wants me to value only myself—to become someone who stands above everyone so no one can reach me. He wants me to cut all ties.'
Amon's threats echoed back to him:
«The moment I sense even the slightest weakness in your spirit… I won't hesitate to drag you back into this world.»
With this revelation, the word "weakness" took on an entirely different meaning. Amon didn't mean losing a fight or lacking strength.
To Amon, weakness was trust. Weakness was letting people in, accepting them, and forming bonds. It explained why he had come out the moment Albion considered opening his heart to Juvia and Sheila.
Albion rested his hand on the cool porcelain of the sink. His expression softened, the cold detachment peeling away as he looked at his reflection.
"I don't want to rise above people just so I can't be touched," he said softly, his voice echoing in the small room. "I just want to decide who I am."
He didn't know if Amon was listening from the dark. But he spoke anyway.
"You push me to become 'one' because you think strength means ruthlessness. You think if I become a King, we both win. But you're wrong about one thing."
His voice was quiet, matter-of-fact, and undeniably human.
"I'm not going to choose your path."
His internal stance toward Amon had shifted. If someone were to ask Albion whether Amon was a friend or an enemy, he wouldn't have a simple answer. He would hesitate, look away, and state the simple truth: He's me. Amon was the part of him that had spent five years buried in the dark—and that shadow finally had a voice.
He took a slow breath, settling his thoughts.
"You understand a lot about me," Albion murmured to the glass. "But I don't know much about you."
He paused, his gaze steady.
"We don't get along. But I'm going to do for you what they did for me."
He turned away from the mirror and walked to the door, his hand settling over the cold metal knob. In his mind, the faces of Juvia and Sheila came into focus.
"I'm going to save you, Amon. Before, I couldn't. But I'm not alone anymore."
He pulled the door open and stepped out into the hallway, his expression resolute.
"Juvia," he said quietly as he approached her. "I need your help."
He was going back into the inner world.