The concept of time died in the dungeon.
For the first four years, Ritsu existed in a continuous, agonizing blur of suffering, unconsciousness, and waking nightmares.
There was no sun to mark the days, no moon to signal the nights.
His existence was dictated solely by the stroke of midday, when the heavy iron door would open and Null would walk in.
Ritsu’s routine became a horrifying clockwork.
From midday until midnight, he belonged to the cold iron chair and the silent man with the cyan eyes.
Null did not speak, did not mock, and did not gloat.
He simply worked.
The boy learned the terrifying differences between the potions that were funneled into his small veins.
The red Titan Blood made his muscles spasm so violently he thought his own bones would snap.
The glowing green Frostbite Venom turned his blood to actual ice, causing him to violently shiver until his teeth cracked together.
And the black Phantom Rot…
that was the worst.
It felt as though millions of tiny, unseen maggots were burrowing beneath his fair skin, eating him from the inside out.
And then there were the insects.
Null would carefully pick up a squirming Blood-Widow Spider or a clicking Spine-Backed Crawler with iron tweezers and place them directly into the fresh, open wounds he had meticulously carved into Ritsu’s arms and chest.
The insects did not scurry away.
They burrowed into the blood and flesh, releasing toxins that sent shockwaves of white-hot agony straight to Ritsu’s racing heart.
Ritsu shrieked.
He wailed.
He sobbed until he physically had no tears left to shed, but Null never paused.
When the unseen clock struck midnight, the torture would abruptly cease.
Null would inject a thick, milky sleeping draught into Ritsu’s neck, and the boy would plunge into absolute darkness.
He would awaken twelve hours later, no longer in the iron chair.
He would find himself lying on a small, stiff bed in a completely empty, cold stone cell.
There were no windows, only a heavy iron door with a small, rusted grate at the bottom.
Through that grate, someone—he never saw who—would slide a metal tray containing raw, bloody steaks and a clay cup of water.
Ritsu devoured the raw meat like a starved animal.
The agonizing alchemy pumped into his veins prevented him from truly starving, but the hollow ache in his small stomach was maddening.
He had only thirty minutes in this cell before Null would inevitably arrive.
Sometimes, the door would fly open, and Null would instantly hurl a flaying knife.
It moved with the speed of a striking viper.
No matter how fast Ritsu scrambled under the bed or pressed himself into the dark corners, the knife always found its mark, sinking deep into his shoulder or thigh.
Ritsu would scream, the sleeping draught would be administered, and he would wake up chained to the iron chair once more.
Over and over.
Day after day.
Year after year.
By the time Ritsu turned nine years old, a fundamental shift had occurred within his mind.
He no longer cried.
He no longer begged for his mother or sisters.
His throat had long since given up producing the agonizing shrieks that used to echo against the subterranean walls.
He had adapted to the agony.
His physical appearance had changed, too.
He was still small and fair-skinned, but his body was a roadmap of brutal, jagged scars.
His pure dark-green eyes had lost their innocent sparkle; they were now dull, haunted pools that stared blankly ahead.
He was no longer the joyous boy running through the sunlit corridors.
One day, while Ritsu was chained to the iron chair, numbly waiting for Null to drive a bone needle into his wrist, the heavy iron door shrieked open.
Ritsu’s dull eyes shifted.
It was not the silent torturer.
It was Zenjiro.
His father looked exactly the same as he had four years ago.
The dark, imposing Gladeon stepped into the dim torchlight, his broad-shouldered frame casting a massive shadow.
His pure black eyes were cold, tired, and completely devoid of warmth.
Ritsu stared at the man who had dragged him down into this hell.
He did not thrash against the chains.
He did not scream for mercy.
His voice was hoarse, raspy from years of disuse.
“Why?” Ritsu croaked.
Zenjiro stopped a few paces from the iron chair.
He looked down at his broken, scarred son.
There was no pity in his dark gaze, only a heavy, suffocating silence.
Zenjiro did not answer the question.
Instead, he spoke with a sudden, flat finality.
“Your sister, Akari, is dead. She was killed by someone I knew.”
The words hung in the damp air like a death sentence.
Ritsu’s breath hitched.
For the first time in years, the numb, protective shell around his mind violently shattered.
Akari.
The little girl with the dark greenish hair who used to chase him down the marble halls.
The sister who hid behind Ren’s skirts.
Dead.
“No…” Ritsu whispered, a jolt of pure, unadulterated terror and heartbreak piercing his chest.
His dull green eyes widened, instantly flooding with hot, angry tears.
He lunged forward, the heavy iron chains snapping taut against his wrists and ankles.
He wanted to grab his father’s throat.
He wanted to tear the truth from Zenjiro’s lips.
“Who?!” Ritsu screamed, his voice cracking into a feral, desperate wail.
The sheer rage pumping through his veins made the heavy iron chair groan against its bolts.
“Why?! How could you let this happen?!”
Zenjiro did not flinch.
He did not offer comfort.
He simply turned his broad back on his son and walked out of the subterranean vault.
“Come back!” Ritsu roared, thrashing wildly, ignoring the thick iron cuffs tearing the skin from his wrists.
“Father! Come back!”
The heavy iron door slammed shut.
Ritsu was left alone, weeping hysterically, the agony in his heart entirely eclipsing the physical torture of the past four years.
The dark walls of the dungeon seemed to close in on him, suffocating him with the realization that the beautiful, perfect life he remembered was actively crumbling to ash above him.
Minutes later, Null walked in.
The silent man picked up a rusted bone-drill, entirely unbothered by the boy’s hysterical sobbing.
The torture resumed.
-Break-
Four more years slipped away into the abyss.
Ritsu was now thirteen years old.
He had grown taller, his frame lean and wiry beneath the jagged roadmap of scars.
His messy blackish hair hung past his eyes, matted with sweat and dried blood.
He was completely silent now.
When Null drove the needles into his veins or poured the bubbling Abyssal Acid over his chest, Ritsu merely gritted his teeth and stared straight ahead.
His dark-green eyes had hardened into chips of cold jade.
He had long since given up trying to count backward from 700,000.
It was a cruel, impossible jest designed to break his mind.
Instead, he spent his hours analyzing the horrific alchemy pumped into his body.
He realized, with a chilling detachment, that Null was not trying to kill him.
He was trying to change him.
The heavy iron door opened.
Zenjiro stepped into the dungeon once more.
Ritsu did not thrash against the chains.
He did not weep.
He simply tilted his head up, his dark-green eyes locking onto his father’s pure black ones.
“Why are you here?” Ritsu asked, his voice cold and steady.
Zenjiro stood tall, his dark mantle draping over his imposing frame.
His expression remained incredibly serious, devoid of even a fraction of emotion.
“Your elder sister, Ren, is missing,” Zenjiro stated flatly.
Ritsu did not react.
He did not widen his eyes, and he did not shed a single tear.
His heart gave a painful throb, mourning the fiercely protective sister who used to scold him, but he refused to give Zenjiro the satisfaction of seeing him break again.
Ritsu merely bowed his head, letting his messy black hair obscure his face.
He sat motionless in the iron chair.
Zenjiro remained standing for a long moment, staring down at the silent, broken teenager.
Then, without another word, he turned and quietly left the dungeon.
Almost immediately, Null stepped out from the shadows.
The masked man picked up a long, hollowed reed attached to a funnel of bubbling, toxic-green Plague-Bringer’s Brew.
As Null moved closer to insert the bone needle, Ritsu finally spoke.
“You are… someone close to my father, aren’t you?” Ritsu murmured.
Null did not pause.
He swiftly drove the bone needle directly into the vein on Ritsu’s inner arm.
Ritsu barely flinched as the burning alchemy flooded his system.
He kept his cold, jade-like eyes fixed on the blank, white-and-black mask.
“Why does fate come like this?” Ritsu asked quietly.
Null reached for a jar containing a massive, writhing Corpse-Lantern Fly, preparing to place it into a fresh cut on Ritsu’s thigh.
Ritsu fell silent for a heartbeat.
Then, his voice dropped to a low, dangerous whisper that did not belong to a thirteen-year-old boy.
“Tell me… what happens if I break these chains and grab you?”
For the absolute first time in eight years, Null stopped.
The masked man’s hand hovered in the air, the massive, clicking insect pinched securely between his iron tweezers.
His pure cyan eyes locked onto Ritsu.
Ritsu smiled—a broken, chilling expression that did not reach his eyes.
“And make you count from 700,000 backwards?”
Null remained perfectly still.
The heavy magical pressure radiating from his dark robe flared slightly, but he did not write a single word on his parchment.
After a long, suffocating moment of silence, Null set the tweezers down.
He picked up a flaying knife instead.
The torture continued.
But deep within Ritsu’s shattered mind, a small, dark ember of realization had finally sparked.