—23rd September 2026—

—Sarah’s POV—

After going through the portal I was in a hotel apartment. While sitting on one of the two beds and waiting for Arismis to finish whatever he had to do, I thought about the whole situation and when I tried to think about what Sophia’s mother said to me, my mind becomes cloudy with some details being impossible to remember. I looked outside the window and saw some of the signs were Japanese and thought

‘Whatever happened with that mother it doesn’t matter now’ Thinking this was hurting me because of how attached I was to that family, but I couldn’t let negative emotions ruin my plans ‘Here in this country, I can finally end this whole story with my hands and…I’ll get strong enough to beat up that god who ruined that mother’s life.’ that thought put a little sarcastic smile on my face. I was caring about someone, me? The same person who only cared about herself until a month ago, now wanted to revenge a person’s death? That thought made me giggle.

‘How absurd…can normal people even change that fast?’ I thought ‘Until a month ago all I wanted was to kill criminals and take my revenge against the world because…’ I was struggling at remembering why I was doing that and even when I remembered, it all seemed just a distant memory, so distant that it almost didn’t feel like part of my past.

‘Maybe…I was right that those aren’t my actual memories’ I was so deep into my thoughts that I didn’t hear Arismis arriving and calling my name.

He put a hand on my shoulder to bring my attention and asked

“Are you ok? I never saw you deep thinking so much…”

I looked up at him and nodded “I’m fine.” my forehead was just slightly sweating and I quickly dried it with the sleeve of my hoodie “I’m just…nervous for what awaits me here…we are so close to the end.”

He looked at me with a bit of doubt and said “Yeah, you are right. But before the final battle, we have to do something else.”

“What?” I asked.

He simply smiled and said, “Let’s go.”

“Wait now?? Not even the time to sleep?” I asked surprised.

“Your body doesn’t need as much sleep as humans anymore. Plus, You slept a lot in the past month, so let’s go now.” after saying this, a blue portal appeared at his side. 

As I got up from bed I sighed in resignation, knowing it would have been useless to say something and went through the portal, which brought me in front of a weirdly shaped palace. Shortly after Arimis arrived and the portal closed.

I looked at the palace “What is this place?”

“This is the Tokyo Detention House, one of the detention centres where they carry out executions. All the criminals here are going to die but they don’t know when. Sad no?” he explained.

“Let me guess, I have to kill them all,” I said expecting a yes, but to my surprise, that wasn’t his answer.

“No no. You just have to kill some of them. The Prime Minister allowed you to kill a max of 25 prisoners, more than this would be difficult to cover and the news would be out in some days.”

“Wait wait. Did you just say the Prime Minister?” I asked both surprised and concerned. In what situation I was?

“Opsie. I shouldn’t have said that..well, at this point it’s useless to hide. The Prime Minister is a Zonniki and he’s part of The Council.”

“What the fu- First of all, are there other Prime Ministers, Presidents or whatever, that are Zonnikies? And second of all, what is this Council? I feel like it’s not the first time I hear about it.” I asked but he put a finger on his lips. Ok, these are secrets.

I sighed “Are there guards?” I asked and as he nodded, I added “Did he say something about eventual casualties?” 

He shook his head while saying “Not a word. So he’ll either cover up the casualties or expect you don’t kill any guards. The choice is yours.” he said.

“...Cool. I’ll go then.” I went towards the entrance and immediately one of the guards went towards me.

“Ma’am, you can’t enter at this ho-” I put a hand on his face and burned him alive before he could finish speaking and went into the structure. Half an hour passed and nothing interesting happened in there, apart from some casualties between the guards and a few screams.

Arismis was still waiting for me, with another blue portal at his side, and smiled when he saw me coming out. My clothes were basically soaking in blood.

“Did you have fun?” he asked.

“Mh-mh” I nodded “What’s the next target?” I asked.

“Enter the portal and you’ll find out.” he said while keeping that damned smile.

I silently went through the portal and I appeared in a bedroom. The first thing I saw was a girl tied to a chair and her mouth was taped shut; she was scared and tears were flowing down her face. I didn’t know what to do, but when I saw her aura was blue I quickly got close to her. Her appearance didn’t look like she was fully Japanese and didn’t seem hurt.

“What the- Who did this?” I was going to remove the tape but Arismis stopped me.

“Don’t do it. She’s the key to our next plan.” he said with calm while I was irritated by the situation and the hostage was scared as fuck.

“I can’t kill another person with a blue aura if that’s your plan.” I said but he quickly put his hands up.

“Don’t worry. You won’t have to kill her, because the plan is you’ll have to use Sophia’s mother's power to give this girl your ice powers.”

“...why?” I looked at him confused, what were his plans?

“New powers that aren’t well trained will become a risk to its user and in the long term, it can cause a black aura to develop.”

“What are-” he interrupted me 

“She’s a student from the same school the guy you have to kill works. Her going berserk will be the perfect chance to see how strong he is.”

I looked at him in shock. He wanted to use a poor innocent girl as a tool for our plans- no…for his plans.

“And what if I refuse?” I said with a challenging tone.

He started laughing at that phrase and continued for a whole minute, then he suddenly stopped and became serious “Don’t make me laugh more, please. Do you want to spare that girl? You? Did you forget how many people you killed already? Yeah, maybe most of them had red auras, but that doesn’t mean anything, right? People can slowly change for the better, you know?”

I tried to say “But…you didn’t say…” 

“I’ve never said that they can’t change and you could have thought about that, no?” there was a little smirk on his face. “Or you probably thought about it but went on with this massacre thinking ‘Almost there. I’m almost at the end of this situation.’ Right?”

I stayed silent because he was finally revealing his true nature, a liar and manipulator. Not that I was surprised but this was the biggest proof I had that probably my memories weren’t even real, he could have crafted this whole plan from the beginning.

“Now. Can you please work?” He said.

I looked at the girl, seeing her face gave me the strength to say something but I stopped because I could sense Arismis’ aura with that murderous instinct.

Gulp I didn’t have any choice. I put my hand on the girl’s chest and when I passed her the ice powers, a brief light lit up her chest and she fell asleep. Subsequently, Arismis slightly touched my left arm and I felt like my mind was empty for a moment and I forgot why I was angry. 

Positivity was filling my mind and I was ready to clean this world from evil-

‘Don’t believe him.’

A whisper. I didn’t hear them since I entered that family’s house, it was louder than last time and I quickly turned around for the surprise. Nothing. When I turned back, Arismis was looking at me and he quickly changed his expression to worried but I didn’t have time what the previous one was.

“You ok?” He asked and I simply nodded.

He freed the girl from the tape and the rope and said that when the girl will wake up, she won’t remember a thing about this and we’ll have to silently follow her to find out who is the guy we have to kill between her teachers.