The bungalow was already furnished.
Arata stood in the doorway longer than necessary, taking in the quiet luxury as if it might vanish the moment he acknowledged it. A bed. A refrigerator. Cabinets stocked with utensils still wrapped in clean cloth. Everything arranged with impersonal precision—as though the house had been prepared for someone who was expected, but never truly known.
Luxurious, he thought.
For the first time in his life, the word did not feel like an exaggeration.
This was not a barracks. Not a tent.Not a borrowed corner of a ruined building.
This was a place that would still be here when he returned.
He showered slowly, letting the hot water soak into muscles that had never fully relaxed. When he stepped out, steam clung to the walls, softening the sharp angles of the room. He explored the house afterwards, there were too many rooms, too much space. Three bathrooms, each larger than the room he'd grown up sleeping in. A kitchen with a cold room stocked well enough to feed a squad.
It felt unreal.
By the time he reached the bedroom again, exhaustion overtook him without ceremony. The bed was new, the mattress springy enough that he bounced slightly when he fell onto it.
He was asleep before his body settled.
Morning crept into his awareness like an infection.
Not sudden. Not loud. Just… present.
The house was silent.
No boots. No engines. No distant artillery. Only the faint ticking of a clock echoing through marble halls far too large for one person.
The quiet pressed against him.
Steam fogged the bathroom mirror as he stood beneath the running shower, water sliding down his back. When he wiped the glass with his palm, his reflection emerged, pale, hollow-eyed, unfamiliar.
For a heartbeat, he almost smiled.
Then the reflection blinked.
He hadn't.
A twitch of the mouth followed, wrong in timing, wrong in intent. Black spread across the reflected cheek. At first there were small scales , then a creeping lattice like oil seeping beneath skin.
It grinned.
Arata did not.
His fist struck before thought could intervene. The mirror shattered.
Pain flared as glass bit into his knuckles, blood spattering the tile. The sound should have ended there with the impact, shatter and then silence.
Instead, the silence breathed.
The shards on the floor vibrated, each fragment humming at a different pitch. Whispers layered over one another, a chorus without source.
"Always breaking, never mending…"
"Afraid to look too long."
"You're not afraid of monsters, Chagrin."
"You're afraid they sound like you."
He staggered back, palms clamped over his ears. "Stop."
The voices grew sharper.
"What did you expect to find in the mirror? Redemption?""You should have died with the others."
The room warped. Corners softened. The air pulsed in time with his heart.
Something moved beneath his skin.
Black shimmer threaded along his arm, slipping under veins like living ink. Heat flooded his skull. His vision split, one side washed red, the other seared white.
He screamed.
Or something wearing his voice did.
Then there was Light.
Cold. Silver. Absolute.
The stone the Night Priestess had given him ignited on the counter, flooding the room with lunar radiance. The whispers collapsed. The crawling sensation recoiled, vanishing as if burned away.
Arata fell to his knees among the glass.
When his vision cleared, the shards were inert. Silent. Ordinary.
He picked up the stone with shaking hands and hung it around his neck. It pulsed once—steady, deliberate.
Darwin's scale chimed softly against it.
Blue light coiled where metal met stone, the resonance sinking into his chest like a held breath finally released. His heartbeat slowed. For an instant, he thought he felt the sea, vast, cold, endless rolling beneath that calm.
He pushed himself upright.
Blood dripped onto the tile. Water ran down his arms.
He faced the largest remaining shard still clinging to the wall.
His reflection stared back—exhausted, wounded, human.
"I am Chagri...Arata" he whispered.
The words shook.
He tried again.
"I am Arata. My mind is mine… and mine alone."
The reflection did not answer.
Only his breath fogged the glass. And for now, That was enough.