I didn't answer. I just stood there. Hollow.
Odorome exhaled softly, the kind of sigh that belonged to a scientist disappointed by a failed experiment. His eyes didn't hold anger, just disinterest, a predator bored of waiting for its prey to move.
"No matter," he said. "The data will be extracted regardless."
He nodded once to the crow, and the world around me shifted. A faint hum filled the room. The wall behind him rippled, turning translucent. Then, with a flicker, an image burned into existence.
The western ridge.
The place where I'd left them.
Smoke curled up in uneven spirals. Firelight painted the horizon in shades of orange and dying red. The camera angle was sharp, clinical with no compassion, no distance. It looked like war footage shot by a machine that never blinked.
"There," Odorome murmured. "Let's see what breaks first. Their bodies… or your spirit."
His words fell softly, almost kindly. That made it worse.
I watched as the Metropian line crumbled. A soldier , one I remembered, the one who'd fixed my broken gadgets,was caught mid-run by a chimera's claws. The screen didn't look away. It never did. I saw him torn in half.
I didn't feel horror. Not immediately. Just… stillness. Like my body was buffering a response it didn't have the power to deliver.
Riruru was there too. Her wings, once radiant with energy, were frayed and blackened at the edges. I saw her stumble as a blast hit her shoulder, feathers scattering like falling snow.
My hands clenched. Shit. Shit shit shit....
Then the view shifted again , zooming, searching. And it found them.
The civilians.
A cluster of frightened faces pressed into a shallow crevice behind the battle line. A little girl with green hair, clutching a broken doll. A man with bandaged arms, the one who'd shared his canteen when I couldn't stand. All of them shaking, crying, holding each other.
Something cracked in me.
Not loud. Just a tiny fissure in the middle of the silence.
And through it, something spoke.
Finish it.
But this time, it wasn't the dragon's voice.
It was mine.
---
A memory cut through the dark like a knife of light. Shizuka's voice. Her smile.
"You're kinder than anyone, Nobita."
Kind. That word had always felt small. Useless.
Now it felt like a blade.
Because if I had been kind, if I was kind, then what was I doing here....watching people die while I sat in a cage?
A spark flickered somewhere deep in my chest. Not courage. Something sharper. Something uglier. Rage.
Not at Odorome.
At myself.
For all the times I ran. For all the excuses. For every moment I told myself I couldn't.
The hum of my blood deepened — turned into a scream beneath my skin. The same energy that had felt like a cage suddenly stretched, flexed, shifted. It wasn't restraining me. It was waiting.
And I realized, maybe it never was a prison. Maybe I was.
I looked up. Odorome was still watching the screen, amused by the spectacle of pain. But I wasn't seeing him like before. The awe was gone. The fear was gone.
For the first time, I didn't see a king.
I saw a target.
---
The Take-copter wasn't on my head. It was in my hand.
I didn't summon it. I didn't even think it. My will — raw, reckless — just shaped the energy inside me, and it answered. The shape wasn't quite metal, not quite light. It flickered, uncertain at first, then steadied into form.
A blade.
This was something else. Something entirely mine.
A blade forged from the fragments of who I'd been — every failure, every tear, every small act of trying that had never been enough.
It glowed faintly, a soft, blue light. Like a memory I didn't want to forget.
Odorome's eyes widened, just a fraction. Enough to show that even he hadn't predicted this.
"Ah," he said quietly. "A new variable."
I moved.
Not forward. Not back. Just — moved.
The world around me blurred, the air stretching and snapping as I cut through it. The crow shrieked, lunging between us, its feathers scattering into shards of shadow. I didn't slow. My blade passed through it, and it cut.
For a heartbeat, it was a bird. Then it was a cloud of black feathers. Then, nothing but static dust.
An idea erased by a better one.
Odorome raised a hand. Reality bent. The air itself became a wall, slamming into me with a pressure that could've broken steel. My body slid backward, boots grinding against the polished floor, but I didn't fall.
The dragon's gift held.
"This changes nothing!" Odorome's voice cracked through the vibration, no longer calm, no longer curious. "You are still just a boy!"
"I know," I said.
My voice didn't tremble.
" I know."
I lifted the blade, watching the blue light pulse like a heartbeat.
"And that's all I need to be."
I lunged.
He met me in kind, summoning a blade of his own — a jagged weapon forged from shadow itself. When they met, the clash didn't make sound. It made absence. A void pulse that sucked all air from the room.
He was faster. Stronger. Every movement of his was perfection, honed through ages of domination.
But I had something he didn't.
Nothing.
No fear. No plan. No future left to protect.
I stopped trying to block. When his sword cut into my shoulder, I didn't pull back. I stepped into the wound. My own blade slid forward, finding his chest.
It wasn't a killing blow.
It was a connection.
The energy inside me ,the memories, the laughter, the endless loop of failure and friendship ,surged outward.
Doraemon's face. Riruru's laugh. Shizuka's kindness. Gian's rough voice. Suneo's mockery that always ended in solidarity.
But then... I stopped.
What the hell was I doing?
Odorome anticipated my attack and vanished as he reappeared few meters away.
"Guess my paln was too easy for you."
"You mean the one where you'll just make me think you're sparing me as you torture me mentally?"
Odorome didn't answer. He smirked.... He was pleased I caught up on his plan. Sick bastard.
Okay then... Let's get out now.