Meanwhile, in a different part of the mansion—at the same spot where Yuki currently lay dreaming of power and privilege—Satoru sat on the edge of his bed.Where Yuki saw opportunity glittering like gold in sunlight, Satoru saw nothing but bars. And behind those bars, within the cage of his own chest, he was holding in rage that felt like it was on the brink of explosion.The room's architectural design was identical to Yuki's, a perfect mirror image down to the smallest detail. The same sparkling white walls, the same mahogany furniture, the same floor-to-ceiling windows and so on.A knock at the door finally shattered the silence that had stretched for almost too long in Satoru's room, the sound reverberating through the space almost too loudly.It was funny, really, how a simple knock could carry so much weight. However, Satoru wasn't laughing—don't get it wrong, yo!"Young Master, it's time for lunch."The servant's voice sounded through the heavy door. The voice was muffled but po

The beloved children felt many things when Nakamura spoke the names of other children, especially the names of Yuki and Satoru—his very own favorites. He seemed to pay those two more attention than he did to them, who weren't some nobodies. If they had the chance—if they could somehow arrange it without consequences, without Nakamura discovering their involvement—they would eradicate the two brothers from the face of the planet to six feet under. However, they couldn't dare do so. Not openly, not obviously, not in any way that could be traced back to them. They couldn't dare hurt someone Nakamura liked. The only way the beloved children might get a genuine opportunity to hurt the two brothers would be if Yuki and Satoru got themselves into huge trouble, if they did something so extremely bad that it warranted punishment. And that opportunity could present itself pretty soon.

The figure was Nakamura himself, looking as enigmatic as always despite having just ordered brutal torture to little Satoru all in his name. Behind him, he pulled a chain that clinked softly with his movements, dragging across the stone floor while making sound like coins being counted. The chain extended back into the darkness of the hallway, attached to something that was still outside the cell, still in the shadows where Satoru couldn't quite see what it was."Satoru," Nakamura spoke gently, and his voice was soft, carrying the kind of warmth that fathers were supposed to use when addressing children rather than victims they'd just had tortured."I have a present for you," he continued, and the words should have been warm, should have carried positivity of gifts or parental affection. But coming from Nakamura's mouth, in this place, with that chain in his hand and that expression on his face, they sounded like a threat.Saying that w

The state of blank unconsciousness didn't last—couldn't last, though by all rights it should have extended for hours or even days given what Satoru body had gone through. Just seconds into the numbness, into that wherever it was that his consciousness had fled to escape reality, Satoru's eyes snapped wide open. There was no temporary state of disorientation like there should have been when someone wakes from deep slumber, no moment of confusion while the mind struggles to remember where he was or what happened before he had fall unconscious. In fact, what appeared to be far more strange than the manner of his awakening were his surroundings, which had transformed so completely and impossibly that for several long seconds, he had just kept staring like a dummy. He found himself in a dark space—not the darkness of the torture cell with its stone walls and iron chains, but true pitch darkness. His body position

Satoru remained suspended in the air, levitating in the foreign vicinity with no visible means of support, his body still positioned at an angle that made it hard to tell if he was up right or upside down or diagonal. The sensation was deeply unusual despite how natural it felt to his body, as if his body had instantly adapted wherever this place was. Countless small multicolored orbs like distant stars were scattered all around him. The orbs gave Satoru conclusive evidence that this wasn't his world, wasn't anywhere on the planet he'd been born on. These weren't stars in the traditional sense—they were too close, too varied in color and too small compared to what scientists described stars to be up close. As if the orbs weren't strange enough, there was something else as well—things resembling projections, though that word didn't quite capture what they were. They weren't soli