The Mithril Sanctuary.
Cherry-red banners.
A magnificent throne.
The man dropped heavily to one knee. Real blood soaked his body, while pain rang through his bones and the depths of his soul, each echo battering his frail frame. Light streamed in through the cracks in the palace's white stone walls, casting him in a solemn glow.
His left arm was ruined.
His right Achilles tendon had been severed.
The chance of a successful counterattack was almost zero.
He dragged air into his lungs, every rasp as broken as an ancient bellows. Yet even on the verge of death, disbelief remained carved across his blood-smeared face. The whites of his eyes had turned red.
Through the crimson haze clouding his vision, he heard the noblewoman's measured footsteps drawing closer.
Her lightning-fast assault had stripped away his ability to fight in an instant. Now he was helpless, waiting for the killing blow.
Death, however, would have been a release. His soul would return on its own. That was what set him apart, and what made his existence so tragic.
But the crimson-gold lightning had turned into radiant chains. They pinned his broken body in place from every direction, forced him into a submissive half-kneel, and took away his freedom.
Even the freedom to escape through death.
Unable to understand, he forced his head up and stared at the woman who should have been gentle and beautiful.
Her love of life was gone. So were her tolerance for others and her reverence for the world. Nothing remained on those delicate features but imperious ambition and a feverish hunger to possess the prisoner before her.
For one second, he froze.
Then, with a low growl, he swung the longsword in his right hand with all the strength he had left.
Frostgrip gave a low, mournful ring.
A tremendous impact knocked the blade skyward and buried it deep in the distant wall.
His counterattack had been dismissed with ease. The blazing chains had already sunk into his flesh. Corruption spread through him as a cage took shape and a collar tightened around his neck.
But that one second had been enough.
His right hand was free.
At his hip, a demonic blade slept inside a black scabbard.
His eyes flew open. Pale gold flashed in their depths as he found the only viable line of attack left to him.
From his crouched position, the blade would have to travel diagonally upward to the right. He gathered the final scraps of strength and focus in his body for a reverse kesa slash.
His right hand closed around the hilt.
He tried to draw the blade in a single flash, but it stopped after barely a fifth of its length had cleared the sheath. The rest might as well have been fused to the scabbard itself. It would not move another fraction.
A soul-numbing cold burst from his fingertips.
The pale gold in his eyes rapidly dimmed. Heat, strength, and even will drained from his body through his right hand, devoured by the blade while it was still sheathed.
What should have been his last desperate strike had become his own grave.
No sound left his lips.
The light faded from his eyes.
His body was already little more than a blood-soaked rag, and darkness closed around him. The last thing he saw was the woman crouching before him, smiling with the twisted delight of someone who had finally claimed a priceless treasure.
The last thing he felt was the hilt beneath his palm and the endless mirage within it, deep as a black ocean.
The image of a girl waiting for his return faded into an old, yellowed photograph.
In that instant, the man's nature changed.
He ceased to be a counterfeit.
And became an object.
...
Satoru jolted upright on the hospital bench with a strangled gasp.
His back snapped away from the backrest, startling the patients waiting nearby. Some glanced at him with concern. Others looked once, then quickly turned away.
Satoru stared blankly at the wall of the hospital corridor.
For a second or two, his mind was empty. Then the world slowly returned: the smell of disinfectant, elderly patients in hospital gowns, the quiet drip of IV fluid.
His eyes shifted.
Beneath his bangs, his pupils held the faintest trace of gold.
Satoru shook his foggy head and ordered it to stop. His usually unruly Fluctlight obeyed at once. As the gold faded, the world returned to normal. Images no longer crawled in slow motion, and every surrounding noise stopped stretching into a distorted drone.
"Are you all right?" asked the middle-aged office worker waiting beside him.
"Yeah. I'm fine."
Satoru paused, then nodded.
"Nightmare? Scared you awake?"
The man pointed to himself and offered the kind of advice only experience could produce.
"Sleep matters. You young people need to take better care of yourselves. Work yourself into the ground now, and by the time you're my age, you'll have more problems than you can count."
"Right. Thanks."
Satoru looked nothing like the young men who spent their days chasing women and their nights in bars. With his slumped shoulders and tired brow, he looked more like an overworked new hire, an ordinary salaryman running on fumes. That was probably why the man had felt compelled to speak up.
Satoru could hardly admit that he had fallen asleep on the bench because he had spent the whole night clearing a high-level ruin zone.
"Number seventy-seven."
He had awakened just in time.
The most crowded place in a city might not be its newest shopping district or amusement park. It might be a hospital, where every age and income bracket eventually crossed paths.
People came to celebrate new life or mourn someone they had lost. It could be a good place or a terrible one, but it was always crowded.
Satoru would have preferred not to come at all. The wait alone could swallow an entire morning.
He sighed, rubbed a hand over his face, and walked into the examination room.
Years ago, he had discussed his condition with another doctor at this hospital. As the old man had warned him, however, Dr. Zhang was no longer there.
The physician behind the desk wore thick glasses and looked experienced enough, but despite being around the same age, he was far more stooped than the former Chinese military doctor.
After a brief exchange of greetings, Satoru sat down.
"Here's your test report. Don't worry if the numbers don't mean much to you. I'll walk you through the important parts."
The doctor handed it over.
"Keep it somewhere safe. It'll be useful for comparison if you come back, and repeat patients get a small discount on their next routine checkup."
The practiced introduction made it clear he had delivered the same line countless times that morning.
"At a glance, your body is about where it should be for your age. Everything falls within the normal range. You're not built like an ox, but you're no weakling either. You look thin, though that probably has more to do with how your body absorbs nutrients than anything serious. Your immune system is a little weak, so pay more attention to your meals and daily routine."
He moved to the next item.
"You've been smoking for nearly ten years, haven't you? I won't waste my breath ordering you to quit. To a smoker like you, that probably sounds like a death sentence. Just cut back. One pack a day at the absolute most. And go easy on the alcohol. Your liver isn't in great shape, so start looking after it. Don't push yourself too hard at work, and stop staying up all night."
The doctor worked quickly through the report, summarizing one result after another. With a crowd still waiting outside and lunchtime approaching, Satoru understood the hurry.
Nothing on the page was life-threatening. A physician with decades of experience was hardly going to dwell on an ordinary checkup. It could feel dismissive, but it was understandable.
Dr. Zhang had been the unusual one, taking his time to explain Satoru's brain in detail and even lingering to talk about life.
"That's the general picture. Any questions?"
Satoru took the report and stared at numbers he could not begin to understand.
"I've been mentally exhausted lately. My head feels heavy too. Could something be wrong?"
"Hmm..."
The doctor picked up the report again.
"Nothing here suggests a problem. All your results are normal. If you're still worried, you can have a brain scan on the fourth floor this afternoon. What you're describing could also be psychological, though. You might want to make an appointment with the mental health department on the sixth floor first."
"Understood."
Satoru nodded without letting anything show.
He would go home, crack open a beer, and watch television.
So much for the medical advice that had just cost him several thousand yen.
Outside the crowded hospital, he stretched.
He had known a routine checkup might not reveal anything, but he had wanted to try. At the very least, he wanted some idea of how old his brain had become. Apparently, that answer required a more advanced examination.
Mentally, he felt lighter than he had in years.
His Fluctlight obeyed him now, whether he wanted to unleash it or hold it back. It felt as though he still had decades of good life ahead of him.
Today was the first time in a while that being startled awake had activated it without his knowledge.
He frowned.
Come to think of it, what had he been dreaming about?
Sometimes he genuinely suspected his brain was already seventy. Give him a few dozen seconds after waking, and any dream vanished completely.
His phone rang before he could think any further.
"Hey, Saki. What's up?"
"Dinner."
"It's noon..."
"Then lunch too."
"And this afternoon...?"
"We'll spend it together."
"But I promised Shino I'd teach her how to cook tonight."
After a moment's thought, Satoru made the astonishingly poor decision to answer honestly.
Silence filled the other end of the call.
Then Saki spoke.
"Perfect. I'll come too. I can taste-test whatever she makes."
From an upper floor of her father's company headquarters, Saki gazed down over the city. One eyebrow rose, and her voice turned cold.
Standing nearby, Hidemura Kurosaki rubbed his hands against a sudden chill. Years of experience told him exactly what had gone wrong.
He considered intervening, but his daughter would probably throw him out. Rather than suffer that humiliation in front of his secretary, he quietly left the office himself, looking deeply aggrieved.