"Rizas Cure!" Jennifer cast her spell again, her voice desperate and commanding.
The mana surged forth from her hands, but this time something different happened. The power didn't simply wash over Anni's broken form—it pulled. It reached into the girl's consciousness, drawing Jennifer's own soul deeper into Anni's memories, into the darkness that had driven her to the edge of that roof.
Jennifer found herself standing in a cemetery beside a young Anni. Tombstones stretched across rolling hills under an overcast sky. The air itself seemed heavy with grief and loss.
It was her father's funeral.
Little Anni, no more than ten years old, stood in a black dress that hung loose on her small frame. She had lost her father at such a tender age, barely old enough to understand that death was permanent, that he would never return home again.
The memory shifted, and Jennifer understood the deeper tragedy. Anni's mother had made the ultimate sacrifice for love. She came from a wealthy, influential family—one of the city's elite lineages. But she had chosen to marry Anni's father over the family's chosen suitor. For this act of defiance, her own family had disowned her, cast her out as if she had never existed.
Anni was the sole surviving testament to that fierce, boundary-breaking love—the physical proof that her mother had chosen passion over privilege.
Her mother endured every hardship imaginable for her daughter. She would have walked through fire. The grief over her husband's death, coupled with the total isolation from her lineage and family, had fractured her spirit beyond repair. She was merely surviving now, not living, clinging to Anni as the last anchor in a world that offered little mercy for women of her status once they lost their male protector.
The memory shifted again, darker now.
Anni's mother, still beautiful but worn by sorrow, stood before the family patriarch. Words were exchanged—Jennifer couldn't hear them, but she felt the desperation radiating from the woman. The family arranged a marriage of convenience. The groom was a man named Hazel Jasper Jones, fifty-seven years old and hungry for power.
Before long, Jones gained popularity throughout the city. His name appeared in newspapers. People spoke of his ambition and charm.
The memory twisted into something sinister.
Jones sat on an expensive couch in his study, conferring with three figures. Across from him sat Jevier, Antonio, and Daniel—the three monsters who would become his personal bodyguards and enforcers.
"First, we killed your party's top leaders," Daniel explained calmly, as if discussing the weather. "Next, we will eliminate your opponents. You will easily become the mayor of Barniglos City."
"But what do we gain from this?" Antonio interjected with a psychotic smirk, his eyes gleaming with barely concealed hunger. "What's in it for us?"
A transaction was negotiated—Jennifer didn't see the details, but she felt the corruption, the bargain made between a mortal man and creatures of darkness.
Soon, they became Jones's personal bodyguards, his shadows, his instruments of will.
In the beginning, Jones behaved kindly toward Anni and her mother. He played the role of a devoted father and devoted husband, showering them with gifts and attention. But beneath that mask, a darkness festered—a hunger that grew with each passing day, waiting for the right moment to feed.
When he won the mayoral election, he hosted a lavish party at his grand estate. He drank heavily that night, his inhibitions dissolving with each glass. He didn't look like a man who had won an election—he looked like a conqueror poised to take the world, a man who believed himself untouchable, unstoppable.
"Next, I will be the president of Penraven!" he shouted, standing on a table, his arms spread wide. The crowd cheered and clapped, celebrating his ambition.
But Anni was sleeping in her room, unaware of what was to come.
KNOCK! KNOCK!
"My precious…, I have some presents for you. Open the door," Jones said, knocking on her door with false gentleness, urging her to grant him entry.
Little Anni opened the door, trusting, innocent.
Jones offered a sickening smile, his gaze consumed by lust and malevolent intent.
Anni's mother was approaching the room. The woman's footsteps echoed down the hallway. She found the door open. She looked through the opening, and her smile dissolved into profound, chilling horror. Her eyes widened as she witnessed the vile act Jones was inflicting upon her child.
Her knees buckled. She knew, instinctively, that intervention would result in swift and brutal retaliation—not only against herself but against Anni as well. In this society, a powerful man's word eclipsed a woman's truth. A woman without male protection was powerless. She was a prisoner in her own home.
She sat in a corner of the house and began to cry, her body wracked with silent sobs. "I am weak, Anni. Please, please forgive me. I am not a mother; I am a hopeless widow chained to a monster," she whispered to the darkness, her words a prayer that would never be answered.
This was the cruel reality of their world.
Jennifer was seeing that she was like a soul in Anni's memories. She can't stop that and can't do anything. Only watch the suffering and the reasons that forced the little girl to take this huge step.
Five years passed.
Anni was now fifteen, no longer a child but not yet a woman. She had grown up enduring the abuse, learning to dissociate from her own body, learning to survive by forgetting. But one day, the weight of the secret became too heavy to carry alone.
She finally felt brave enough—or desperate enough—to tell her mother everything.
Jones knew he was in a dangerous situation. His reputation, respect, and power were all on the line. If this scandal became public, everything he had built would crumble to dust.
Jevier appeared nearby, materialising from shadows like a demon summoned.
"I think your little pleasure from your daughter is also in danger now," Jevier said, his voice dripping with dark amusement.
"What just you sa—" Before Jones could complete his words, Jevier grabbed his collar with inhuman strength.
"Listen, you old fool," Jevier hissed. "The Guardian of the Orders will soon become the Defence Minister. I chose you to help the Dark Order with all the political issues. I need blood. I need blood. I need the blood of suffering. If I don't get it in time, I will torture you and drink your blood."
Jones's face paled.
"Why not her?" Jevier suggested with a smile that promised unimaginable suffering. "Kill her soon..."
When Anni told her mother everything, the woman's face transformed. She looked at her daughter with an intensity that burned away the years of shame and powerlessness.
She embraced Anni with fierce determination. "I am sorry. I failed as a mother. I became a selfish coward. But no more," she whispered into Anni's hair. "I will go to the police. Even if they can't help you, I will kill him myself. I am brave this time. I swear it."
Anni's tears wet her mother's shoulder. For the first time in years, she felt a glimmer of hope—that perhaps, just perhaps, someone would believe her. Someone would help.
But Jevier had other plans.
He snapped his fingers to form a mana sphere, his expression cold and cruel. "Kill her," he commanded, and threw the ball at Anni's mother.
The woman felt dizzy. A sharp headache split her skull. Her eyes rolled back, turning white as the possession took hold. She lost all control of her body and mind, screaming as something alien clawed at her consciousness. She snatched a nearby lamp and struck Anni with it, her body a puppet dancing on Jevier's strings.
Anni managed to survive the blow, but she understood immediately—this sudden violence was utterly unnatural. Her mother had never before attempted to harm her. Never. The realisation was devastating: her mother had been possessed, controlled, turned into a weapon against her own child.
Several servants rushed in and saved Anni from further harm, pulling her away from her mother's possessed form.
After that incident, her mother's health worsened. The possession had broken something fundamental inside her—some essential part of her soul that couldn't be repaired. Anni never visited her mother again, unable to bear the sight of the woman she loved trapped in the ruins of her own mind.
But her mother's final vow—"I will kill him myself"—instilled a newfound courage in Anni's heart. She decided to go to the police and report everything.
That day, Jevier materialised in front of her. He used his dark powers on Anni, overwhelming her mind and will. She stood still for a moment, paralysed, and then suddenly fell unconscious. When she woke up, she could not remember anything that had happened or why she was there. The memory had been erased, stolen from her.
Later that night, as she studied in her room, the sound of a spell echoed from outside: "Elenchos."
She suddenly fell asleep and lost all control of her body. In her sleep-possessed state, she began to smash everything around her—furniture, books, anything within reach. She grabbed at her own hair, her own skin. Eventually, she hit her head against the mirror, and blood poured down her face.
Jevier entered the room and used his mana, his voice calm and collected: "Mesanychta, sleep her."
She immediately stopped harming herself and fell asleep again, her body going limp.
Jevier took some drops of blood from her forehead with his fingers and licked them slowly, savouring the taste. "This is very good! I need mo...re pain into them."
His addiction had begun.
The next day, Jevier became uncontrollably driven. He needed Anni's blood; he was addicted to it like a drug, craving more with each taste. That night, Anni slept unwillingly again and again, lost in Jevier's control. In her possessed state, she stabbed her own hand with a knife taken from a nearby fruit basket, unable to stop herself.
Jevier returned immediately, drawn by the scent of her pain and blood. He began to consume her blood eagerly. "Not enough. I need more. More pain…"
Jones watched with satisfaction, seeing his problem solved. Jevier was keeping Anni compliant, keeping her broken.
Anni woke after a long time, screaming in pain, unable to comprehend what had happened to her body. She saw the wounds on her hand, the blood dried on her skin, but she had no memory of inflicting them.
The next day, two servants whispered together in the backyard, unaware that Anni was listening from an open window.
"Her mother was responsible for the latest incident," one servant muttered, glancing nervously at the main house.
"A truly unnatural cruelty. No sane parent inflicts such damage upon their own daughter," another agreed, shaking their head in disbelief.
"Before we involve the authorities, we must consider Mr. Jones. We cannot risk tarnishing the Mayor's good name with this scandal," a third servant calculated coldly.
"It is just too strange. The gentleman is so generous and proper. I believe this woman is practising dark arts. Perhaps that is how she killed her first husband," the first servant whispered darkly.
"I suppose he died in a protest; surely this woman does something," the third servant mused.
Anni heard every word, understood every implication.
She realised that what was happening to her was unnatural, impossible—something beyond normal human cruelty. But the servants had already made their judgment. If she died, all the blame would fall on her mother. The woman who had tried to save her would be condemned as a murderer, a practitioner of dark magic.
Anni made a horrific decision.
The memory shifted. She was standing on the roof of her school, the wind whipping around her. In her hands was a piece of paper—her suicide note, written in shaking handwriting.
At that moment, her friend Martha arrived, breathless from running.
"Anni, break time is over. Why did you call me here?" Martha asked, concern already flickering across her face. "You've looked unusual lately. Are you okay? What happened to you yesterday? You came to school with a bandage on your head, and now today you have a cut on your hand. Is there a problem at home? Your mother again attacked you?"
Anni's tear fell onto the note, smudging the ink.
"I can't suffer this life long," she whispered.
She walked to the edge of the roof.
Her last two sentences in the note read: "If I died, none of the reasons is my mother. She loves me more than I."
"What are you going to do now?" Martha cried out, her voice breaking. "No! An… Anni, don't do this! Anni!"
She jumped.
In this dimension between worlds, Jennifer was watching everything—Anni's reasons, her past, her fear, her profound sadness. These forces had compelled the girl to take that final step. The world turned completely black, a void where only souls could exist.
Anni's soul stood before Jennifer, ethereal and translucent. "What do I do? Is it right?" Anni asked, her voice small and lost. "My life started in hell. Now, death looks like a paradise for me. If this can help my mother, perhaps it is the right choice."
Anni turned her back and began to drift toward the unknown, toward the final darkness.
"No! No! No!Totally wrong. You are just so stupid. Stop!" Jennifer yelled, her voice desperate and commanding. "Didn't you see how brave your mother is? Just because of society, she was silent at the time. But she is brave, Anni. You are precious to your mother. You are precious!"
Jennifer tried to stop her, reaching out, but she couldn't grab her, couldn't touch her. Anni's body was like a projection of light, insubstantial and slipping away. Jennifer tried again and again, her movements frantic and desperate.
But Anni's soul drifted away from Jennifer's grasp, moving toward oblivion.
Suddenly, another soul appeared in front of Anni, blocking her path.
"You look like me. What are you?" Anni's eyes widened in shock.
A young woman stood there—twenty years old, with the exact same face as Anni. But her neck was cut deep, and blood rained constantly from the wound, a never-ending cascade of crimson. Her eyes held an ancient sadness.
The soul gave Anni a hard slap across the face.
Before Anni could understand what was happening, the soul hugged her gently, fiercely, with the strength of someone who had waited lifetimes to hold her.
"Anni, you are me," the soul whispered. "I am you. And I am telling you—we don't die today. Not like this. Not for them."
Jennifer woke up, pulled back into the normal world with violent suddenness. Johan and Arthur were sitting on a nearby bench, their faces etched with exhaustion. They had been waiting for her for a long time, unsure if she would ever return.
Jennifer gasped, her body shaking, tears streaming down her face from the weight of what she had witnessed.
She looked at Anni's still form on the hospital bed.
"Rizas Cure," Jennifer cast the spell one last time, her voice filled with determination and love. "Please. Please."
The mana surged forth, but this time it carried something more than magic. It carried Jennifer's own will, her own fierce determination that Anni would live. The dark roots erupted from her hands and wrapped around the girl's body with gentle but absolute purpose.
Anni's eyes opened.
She took a deep, long breath—the first breath of a life saved, the first breath of a second chance.
Arthur ran to her, checking her vital signs, his doctor's instincts taking over. "She's stable. She's really alive."
Jennifer still looked at Anni, tears streaming down her face. She felt the weight lift from her shoulders, replaced by something warm and profound.
"Johan," she said quietly, her voice breaking with emotion. "I saved a life. As a doctor. As a healer."
Tears came to her eyes—not tears of sorrow, but of satisfaction, of purpose fulfilled. "Look, Johan. I saved a life. We save a life."
She turned to look at her twin, and in that moment, the weight of the night seemed to lift. They had come to the edge of darkness and pulled back. They had snatched a life from the jaws of death itself.
And in saving Anni, they had saved something in themselves as well.
"Good work, Aura positive." Johan finally praised her with his gentle smile.