Chapter 61: Chapter 61

I've slaughtered armies without blinking.

I've seen death in every shade — rotting, burning, screaming — and walked away colder each time.

It broke something in me that I didn't even know could break.

The man who smiled just to see me smile. Who once wore a cooking pot on his head and called it "Knight Helmet" because he thought it would make Elena laugh.

And not just a child — but a broken one. Fragile. Abandoned.

He looked no older than four.

Thrown into a pit like trash.

The Death Well, they called it. I can't think of a more fitting name. A hole in the earth where failed experiments were tossed to rot — forgotten by the world above.

His tiny body hit the ground hard. Bones cracked beneath him — not his, but someone else's. The remains of those who came before.

He just lay there... stunned. Like he couldn't process what pain even was.

Then, slowly, he sat up — blood on his lip, dust in his eyes — and called out.

"D-Doctor...? I'm awake..."

His voice echoed, small and shaky.

"I... I think I messed up the test... but I can try again..."

Silence answered him. Cold. Indifferent.

He looked around, eyes wide and searching, like maybe this was just another hallucination. Another simulation. Another test.

But there was nothing.

Only darkness. And bones. And the stench of death.

He tried to stand. Fell again. His knees scraped raw on shattered ribcages.

"I don't understand..."

In the far corner of the well, curled beneath a shattered pipe, sat a girl. Elf ears. Hair like wilted cherry blossoms. Her skin blistered and burned, half her face melted from some cruel experiment. Her leg bent the wrong way, exposed bone jutting from torn flesh.

She wasn't hiding her pain.

She just didn't care anymore.

"You can scream," she said softly. "It won't matter. We're just trash now."

Yuuta stared at her — eyes big, red, confused.

She didn't answer right away.

"Someone like you," she said at last. "A failed subject."

She glanced at him, brow furrowing.

"You're human? You don't look like the usual junk they throw in here."

"I... I don't know," Yuuta whispered. "Am I human?"

That stopped her. Her expression softened, if only slightly.

"Tch. You really are just a kid."

She motioned him over, gently.

"Sit. You'll get dizzy. You're still bleeding."

Then, slowly, he limped toward her and sat down, flinching as his wounds touched the cold, filthy ground.

She looked at the gash on his arm, the bruises already turning deep purple on his tiny chest.

"Doesn't it hurt?" she asked.

He looked down at his wounds.

Then up at her, offering a tiny, crooked smile.

"A little. But... I've been hurt more before."

It was a child trying to look okay because he thought it would make someone stay.

She looked away, fists clenching.

"Don't call me that," she snapped, but her voice wavered. "I'm not your sister."

He flinched again, eyes glossy.

She sighed. Rubbed her face. Then looked back at him.

"Earlier you said something... about dragons?"

Yuuta perked up slightly. Nodded.

"Doctor said I was made to kill dragons! I'm the only one who can! But... I guess I'm not ready yet. Maybe that's why they sent me here..."

"No. They sent you here because you failed. That old bastard—he gave up on you, like he gave up on me."

"...So I'm gonna die?"

"I'm gonna die here...?"

But when she finally did, it was quiet. And it trembled.

"No. You're not. I'll get us out. I swear."

Yuuta looked up at her — a flicker of hope lighting up in those terrified eyes.

"I'm an elf. A princess. My family... they'll come for me. And I'll take you with me."

A small, precious, painful smile.

"Then... I won't be alone right oni-cha?

"No. We'll eat good food once we out. Lots of it. Sleep in warm beds. No needles. No cages."

Yuuta leaned over and hugged her suddenly.

"I love you, Onee-chan."

"H-Hey—ow! My leg, idiot!"

He backed off fast, panicked.

"S-Sorry! I didn't mean—!"

She groaned. Then laughed, just a little.

"You really are stupid human."

They sat together for a moment, silence settling again.

Then Yuuta looked up at her, his voice curious.

"Onee-chan... what's a family?"

"You said your family will save you. So... what's a family? Are they ogres? Or goblins from the lab?"

She chuckled, bitter and broken.

"No. No, dummy. Family isn't monsters."

Yuuta tilted his head.

"Then... what are they?"

She grew quiet again.

This time her voice was softer. Like she was remembering something that hurt too much to say out loud.

"Family is someone who protects you. Who holds your hand when you're scared. Who makes you laugh when you want to cry. They stay... even when you're broken."

"Oh... So Doctor's my family?"

All the light in it drained away.

She stared at him like the words physically hurt.

"No," she whispered. "No, he isn't your family."

Yuuta blinked up at her. "But he feeds me. He talks to me. He made me. He said I'm special..."

That last part caught me.

The girl's face shifted—shock, horror, understanding all at once.

"Wait... made you?" she repeated. "You weren't taken?"

"Doctor said I was born in the lab," Yuuta said quietly. "In a tank. I... I don't have anyone else, I was born with the help of Doctor."

The weight of it crashed down on her — on me.

This tiny, brave, innocent boy...

And now, thrown away because he didn't grow up into what they wanted him to be.

As the man I love... the boy I now understood... sat broken in the dark.

Because it was all he knew how to do.

"So..." he said breaking my silence.

"Does that mean I'm not real...?"

Yuuta's voice cracked.

Not loudly. Not like a tantrum.

It was the kind of crying only a child with no one left learns to do — soft, scared, like he was trying to hide it even though there was no one to hide it from.

His small hands curled against his chest. His shoulders trembled. Tears ran down his cheeks, but he didn't wail or scream.

He just sobbed. Quiet. Shaking. Alone.

I wanted to do something. I wanted to break the memory itself.

All I could do was watch.

That broken elf girl — Sophia — pulled him into her arms. She winced from her shattered leg, from the burns across her skin, but she didn't care. She hugged him anyway.

"No," she whispered, fiercely. "You're not fake."

"But... they made me..."

"Doesn't matter," she said. "You're breathing, right? You're warm. You feel pain. You feel scared. You cry when it hurts."

She looked down at him, eyes glassy but sure.

"That means you're real."

He sniffled, leaning against her shoulder.

"If... If I was born in a family..."

He continued, barely above a whisper.

"Would my family have saved me...?"

Every part of me screamed to run to him — to pull that tiny, hurt boy out of the memory and into my arms. To hold him. To protect him.

But I couldn't. I couldn't do anything.

My fists were clenched so tightly I felt blood drip between my fingers.

A hand touched my shoulder.

I turned. My grandfather.

His old, scarred eyes were distant — full of a thousand battles and more regrets.

"This," he said softly, "this is why we fought the war, Erza."

"So humans would stop doing this to children. So no one would be made to suffer again."

"I'm sorry. We should stop this. We should search for the seal's source now. This pain isn't meant to be relived."

"No," I said, my voice sharp — like steel drawn in the dark. "I want to watch. Every second. Every wound. Every lie they fed him."

I looked back at Yuuta — that boy I loved, the boy I thought I knew.

"I want to see who did this to him. I want to remember every name. Every face."

My voice trembled with fury.

"Because when I return to my throne... the first decree I give—will be death

He gave me a long look.

And the memory kept playing.

Down below, Yuuta sniffled again, wiping his face with the back of his hand.

"You said... your name's Sophia. That's pretty."

She managed a half-smile

"Yeah, well... at least they didn't take that from me."

"Didn't they give you one?"

"Oh! You mean... my number?"

That made her freeze.

Yuuta nodded, too innocent to understand why that word hurt her so much.

"They call me Zero. That's my name in the lab."

Sophia's breath caught.

She looked away, her burned hands tightening.

She muttered something in elvish — a curse, maybe — then turned back to him.

"No more numbers. You deserve a name."

"Yeah," she said. "I'm giving you one. Right here. Right now."

He looked up, wide-eyed, a spark of something beginning to grow in that hollow gaze.

"You'll give me a name...?"

He smiled. Slowly. Gently.

"Then... I'll have a real name... just like you?"

She looked up at the faint circle of light far above the well — the only glimpse of the sky they'd seen in days.

She was quiet for a moment, thinking.

"You're kind. Brave. Too strong for someone so small."

"Strong?" he whispered.

"So your name will be..."

"Yeah. That's your name now."

He sat still for a moment.

A smile spread across his tear-streaked face.

Wide. Innocent. Pure joy.

"Yuuta," he said again, like testing the sound.

"Yuuta... I'm Yuuta Kounari ! That's me! I have a name now!"

He clapped his hands together and laughed — actually laughed, despite the pain, the bruises, the rot around them.

It was the laugh of a child who'd just been born for the first time.

"My name is Yuuta Kounari ! Thank you, Onee-chan!"

Sophia smiled faintly, brushing a trembling hand over his hair.

"You're welcome, Yuuta."

He looked up at the sky again, whispering to himself.

"Yuuta... I'm Yuuta..."

He forgot where he was.

Because someone had finally given him something the lab never could.

A place in the world.

A reason to believe he existed.