The awakening was not a liberation; it was a condemnation.
The first thing his consciousness registered was the insulting softness of high-quality silk sheets. The smell of damp stone, old blood, and mold from his cave had been replaced by the subtle aroma of lavender and purification incense. Sunlight filtered through heavy crimson velvet curtains, bathing the luxurious guest room of the Gremory mansion in a warm tone that Yugo felt like acid on his skin.
He opened his eyes slowly, but his gaze remained laden with the blackness of the abyss. His muscles protested with a dull and stabbing pain, reminding him that he was still trapped in his own human fragility.
—Damn it... —he whispered, his voice barely a dry rasp.
To his absolute horror, his heart was still beating. Air was still entering his lungs. Death, that old friend he had pursued for a decade and begged in the cave, had slammed the door in his face again.
He tried to move his left arm, instinctively searching for the Omnitrix dial. In his tactical mind, transformation was his only way out: to become something that didn't feel pain, something that could pass through walls and disappear into the void.
But his arm felt heavy, as if it were anchored to the bed by a lead shackle.
When he raised his wrist in front of his eyes, Yugo felt the little air he had left escape from his chest. Around the alien device, fitted with millimeter precision, was a square metal plate of a dark and unknown material, engraved with intricate sealing runes that glowed with a faint crimson and blue light.
The watch's touchscreen was covered. The emerald core was silenced. The most powerful weapon in the universe had been caged.
—No... No, no, no —Yugo groaned, weakly struggling with the plate. The metal was cold and immovable; it was a combination of cutting-edge Sitri House technology and high-level Gremory sealing magic.
Sona and Rias had joined forces to disarm him.
—Why...? —He clenched his teeth so hard that his gums began to bleed—. Why didn't she kill me?
The self-hatred accumulated over ten years of massacres and nihilism exploded in his chest like a black supernova. He dug his nails into the pale and skeletal skin of his own arms, sinking them with desperation, seeking physical pain to silence the screams of his own mind. Why save a man who had designed his own extinction? Why waste magic and care on the trash that had planned to cut their throats?
—You should have left me in that cave! —he roared toward the ceiling, although his voice broke in a dry and heart-wrenching sob—. You owed me that, Rias! I gave you the perfect reason to finish me!
His nails dug deeper, leaving red marks on his skin already weakened by malnutrition. He felt pathetic. A frustrated genocidal in a princess's bed, unable to kill himself, unable to flee, and unable to use the power that defined him.
At that moment, the soft sound of the door opening stopped his self-destructive frenzy.
Yugo did not turn his head. He stayed there, staring at the metal plate covering his watch, his chest rising and falling in short and erratic breaths, while the shadow of whoever had just entered was projected on the room's wall.
—That plate is not to punish you —said a soft voice, but laden with an unbreakable authority that he knew too well.
Rias Gremory stood at the threshold, dressed in a simple dress, but with a gaze that accepted no replies. Her blue eyes, usually bright, were dulled by the tiredness of not having slept, but there was no trace of fear or hatred in them.
—It's so you stop trying to flee through the monsters —Rias continued, walking slowly toward the bed—. It's time for you to learn to live with the man you really are, not with the one you pretend to be when you turn that dial.
Yugo let out a laugh. It was a raspy, dry, and chilling sound, devoid of any hint of humor or sanity. The laugh bounced off the upholstered walls of the luxurious room, sounding like the crunch of bones breaking under pressure.
He clung to the silk sheets with his bony hands, trying to sit up, but his atrophied muscles barely allowed him to lean against the mahogany-carved headboard. His breathing was erratic, a furious hiss escaping between his clenched teeth.
—The monsters in the watch? —Yugo spat, and his voice, though weak, was laden with a poison so pure that it lowered the temperature of the room—. Do you really think the transformations are the problem? Ghostfreak, Diamond, Heatblast... none of them are to blame. They are weapons. Dead tools.
The man raised his emaciated face, fixing his dark, empty, and bloodshot eyes directly on the Gremory heiress's blue pupils.
—Monster? —he repeated, pointing at his own chest with a trembling finger—. The only monster is the one you're looking at. There is no evil alter ego, Rias. It was me, with this damn human body, who strangled an innocent boy in the rain. It was me who planned cold-blooded massacres. I don't hide in the watch. I hide in it because when I return to this human form, I have to remember that the genocidal is me.
Rias did not step back. Her crimson aura flickered softly, not as a threat, but as an emotional shield against her instructor's storm of self-destruction. She clenched her fists at her sides, her jaw tense.
—You were wrong. You got lost in the darkness, but you refused to take the last step —replied Rias, her voice rising, challenging the man's twisted logic—. You protected us. You could have let us die at Raiser's hands, or Asia at Raynare's, but your instinct was to bleed for us. That doesn't make you a monster, Sensei. It makes you a broken man who needs to be repaired. I'm not going to hate you. Sona is not going to hate you. And you're not going to push me away with your blood stories.
Yugo closed his eyes tightly. The nails that had previously dug into his arms now clutched the sheets until they tore the silk. That demon's stubbornness, her absurd and devoted compassion, made him nauseous. She didn't understand him. She believed he was just a traumatized native of her world, a victim of supernatural circumstances who had gone mad from seeing behind the veil.
If she wasn't going to back down from his crimes... then he would have to destroy the very foundations of her reality. He was going to play his last card. The ultimate blasphemy. The secret that had driven him to madness in the first place.
—Repaired? —Yugo opened his eyes, and the emptiness in them was replaced by a manic and desolate gleam—. You think my mind broke because I saw angels and demons. You think I went crazy from fear of the supernatural?
The man leaned forward, ignoring the stabbing pain in his ribs, bringing his emaciated face closer to Rias's.
—What if I told you... that you are not real? —he whispered, each syllable dripping with crushing existential weight.
Rias frowned, confused. Her aura flickered. —What are you talking about? Is the malnutrition making you delirious? I'm here. You're seeing me.
—I'm seeing you, yes. But ten years ago, you were only ink, paper, and lights on a screen —declared Yugo. His voice stopped being a whisper and began to rise, filling the room with the magnitude of his lost tragedy—. I wasn't born in this world, Rias. I wasn't born in this stupid universe of magic and Demon Kings.
The redhead's pupils dilated. The air in the room seemed to suddenly become scarce.
—I was twenty-one years old —Yugo continued, and for the first time, his voice broke, revealing the boy who had been buried under ten years of atrocities—. I had a life. A real, boring, and perfect life. I had a mother who waited for me with a hot dinner. I had an older sister I argued with every day over stupid things, and a younger brother I helped with his math homework. We were happy. I was happy. And one damn day, I went to sleep in my bed... and woke up in this hell of fiction.
Rias took a step back, involuntarily. The revelation made no logical sense, but the absolute conviction, the raw and primitive pain in her Sensei's voice, could not be faked. It wasn't the lie of a strategist; it was the lament of a soul amputated.
—They took my universe from me! —Yugo shouted, slamming his fist on the mattress—. They stole my mother! They stole my siblings! Everything I loved disappeared in the blink of an eye, and I was thrown into a world that I knew was fake. Because you are a story! You are a damn tale!
Rias brought a hand to her chest, feeling an existential vertigo threatening to throw her to the floor. —What... what are you saying...? That's impossible...
—How do you think I knew exactly how to humiliate Raiser Phoenix?! —Yugo roared, his vocal cords tearing from the effort—. I didn't need to investigate his damn regeneration, I already knew the script of his pathetic existence! I knew about the Fallen Angels, I knew about Kokabiel stealing the Excaliburs, I know about the Khaos Brigade, about Ophis, about events that in your damn timeline haven't even happened yet.
Yugo began to pant, cold sweat beading on his forehead. The tears he hadn't shed for his victims now fell for his lost family.
—Why do you think I chose you to unleash the apocalypse? —Yugo sobbed, looking at her with a grimace that mixed hatred and misery—. Because I knew that, in the original story, Sirzechs Lucifer would give his life and declare an all-out war if his precious little sister was murdered by Grigori's faction. I knew that that three-sided massacre would loosen the seals of the end of the world. I knew it would awaken the Trihexa, the Beast of 666. I knew it because I read it. I knew it because you... to me... were not people. You were damn characters.
The silence that followed his confession was deafening.
Rias Gremory, the proud Princess of Ruin, was pale as a corpse. The very structure of her existence had just been challenged in the most brutal way conceivable. The man before her had not only planned her death; he had seen her entire life as a prescribed play, a canvas on which to spill blood to avenge the universe that had stolen his family.
—I killed those people... —Yugo continued, his voice reducing to a whisper choked by crying, letting himself fall back against the headboard, exhausted, destroyed—. I murdered humans in that alley, I shattered my bones and killed my empathy because I convinced myself that none of this mattered. I told myself every day: "They are not real. They are just shadows. If I destroy them all and destroy this paper world, maybe... maybe I can wake up and see my mother again."
Yugo closed his eyes, hiding his face between his trembling hands. The weight of his crimes and the irrecoverable loss of his true home clashed in his mind, shattering any tactical or emotional barrier he might have left.
—But then I went to that academy. And I saw that they bled. I saw that they laughed. I saw that Asia truly cried —sobbed the thirty-one-year-old man, crying like the twenty-one-year-old boy whose life had been stolen—. I realized that, fiction or not, the pain I caused was real. And I couldn't do it. I was stranded. I lost my real family forever, and I became the executioner of a family that didn't deserve to die. So tell me, Rias... —Yugo pulled his hands away from his face, showing the redhead demon the absolute abyss of his soul—. Knowing that to me you were just a line of text in a book, that I planned to use you as a piece of meat to commit suicide along with this fake world... are you still going to tell me that I am not a monster?
The silence in the room was so dense that it seemed to have weight, threatening to crush the lungs of both. Yugo's words floated in the air, a revelation of cosmic proportions that had reduced the majesty of the Princess of Ruin to that of a frightened young woman facing an incomprehensible abyss.
But the man's madness and despair were not over.
With a choked groan that tore his throat, Yugo released the silk sheets. His arms trembled violently from lack of nutrients and stress, but the emotional agony drove him to move. He slid to the edge of the immense bed and forced his legs to support his weight.
It was a useless attempt. His atrophied muscles gave out instantly.
Plaf!
The man who had made the Maous tremble and who harbored the power to annihilate mountains, collapsed. His knees brutally hit the polished wooden floor, stopping exactly at Rias Gremory's feet.
Rias stifled a scream, taking half a step back out of pure instinct, looking down.
Yugo did not try to get up. He kept his head down, his tangled hair hiding his face. His shoulders trembled, shaken by a silent and primitive crying that had been repressed for ten years under layers of blood and military tactics. He had revealed his darkest secret. He had completely bared himself, showing that beneath the monster's armor, there was only a boy whom the universe had played the cruelest joke of existence on.
Slowly, the man placed the palms of his emaciated hands on the floor, raising his face toward the redhead.
Tears cleaned the remnants of dried blood on his cheeks. There was no longer cynicism in his gaze. There was no longer the "dead fish" apathy, nor that cold lethality that characterized his transformations. Only the terror and pure, childish longing of an exiled soul remained.
—Do it... —he begged, his voice breaking into a thread of pure desperation, looking at her from the floor like a sinner before his goddess—. Maybe... just maybe... the condition to return to my home was not to destroy this world.
Rias's breathing cut off. The crimson aura around her began to flicker, destabilized by the storm of emotions overwhelming her.
—Maybe... it was that I died in it —he continued, clinging to that sudden and macabre hope with the strength of a shipwrecked man to a wooden plank. His gaze became almost feverish—. If you kill me... if you use the power of destruction to erase me... maybe I'll wake up. Maybe I'll open my eyes and be in my room. Maybe I can go down to breakfast and hear my sister scream, and see my mother again...
The man raised a trembling hand, weakly grabbing the hem of Rias's dress.
—Please... —he whispered, and that simple word carried the weight of ten years of torture, massacres, loneliness, and an unconfessable madness—. Let me return to my family.
Time stopped in the Gremory mansion.
Rias looked at the man at her feet. The existentialism of knowing that to him she was a fictional character, a simple drawing on paper, was completely crushed by the raw and undeniable reality of the human pain in front of her. He was not a terrorist. He was not a relentless genocidal. He was a twenty-one-year-old young man who had been kidnapped by the cosmos, trapped in a nightmare that refused to end, and who had gone mad from the absolute loneliness of not belonging anywhere.
The Gremory heiress looked at the bony hand clutching her dress. She remembered how those same hands had summoned a blue sun to save her from the arranged marriage. She remembered how he had stepped in front of Asia to take a spear of light.
The universe had taken everything from this outsider, and in exchange, it had forced him to carry a weapon of mass destruction.
Rias closed her eyes and a couple of rebellious tears escaped her lashes, rolling down her cheeks. The pride of her lineage, the fury for having been the target of his plan, the fear of the cosmic truth... everything vanished.
With a soft movement, Rias dropped to her knees in front of him. The silk of her dress spread across the floor, shortening the distance between the demonic deity and the broken human.
Yugo opened his eyes wide, surprised by the movement, expecting to see the sphere of destruction energy forming in the redhead's hands to grant him his longed-for end.
Instead, Rias extended her arms. She took him by the shoulders and pulled him forward, wrapping him in a firm, warm, and desperate embrace. She pressed Yugo's head against her chest, hiding the man's emaciated face in the hollow of her neck, surrounding him with her scent of roses and her body heat.
—No... —murmured Rias, her voice trembling, but firm as steel, stroking the outsider's tangled hair—. I won't do it.
Yugo tensed, weakly trying to push her away, but he had no strength. —Rias, please... I beg you, I have to try, I have to go back...
—If I kill you, you will die! —Rias shouted at him, a sob escaping her throat, squeezing him even tighter, refusing to let go—. You won't wake up in another bed, Sensei! You won't cross to another world! If I kill you, you will turn to ashes, your soul will disappear and we will lose you forever. And I refuse to lose you!
Yugo stifled a scream against the girl's shoulder, clutching Rias's dress with both hands, no longer to beg, but because his legs, his mind, and his sanity had completely given way. The unbreakable wall of the military veteran collapsed, and the man broke down crying. He cried with broken, heart-wrenching screams, the cry of a child who had been told that his mother would never come back for him.
—They took my world from me, Rias... —he sobbed, his tears soaking the heiress's dress—. I'm alone... I don't belong here... I'm a monster in a fairy tale...
—You're not alone —Rias whispered in his ear, gently rocking him, while her own tears fell on the man's back—. I know that to you we are a story. I know they took your true home from you. And I can't return you to your mother, or to your siblings... I don't have that power.
Rias pulled back only a few centimeters, taking Yugo's tear-soaked face between her hands, forcing him to look into her blue eyes, which shone with a devotion that went far beyond fiction or reality.
—But I swear on the name of my family... that if you stay in this "story," we will be your home. I will be your family. Issei, Asia, Kiba, Akeno, Koneko... and even Sona. We won't let you fall into the abyss again.
The outsider looked at her, getting lost in the warmth of that promise. It was blasphemy to accept the love of a "character," a betrayal of the memory of his true family... but Rias's embrace was so real, so human, and so comforting that the exhausted monster, after ten years of war, finally stopped fighting and closed his eyes, surrendering to the warmth of his new and strange reality.