The lower vaults of the Midnight Palace were not built to hold prisoners.
They were built to contain disasters.
Ezio felt it the moment he descended past the last blood-lit corridor into the depths where even vampires rarely walked. The air thickened. Not with humidity or rot—but with pressure. Like standing too close to a lightning storm that had learned to breathe.
This was not where criminals were kept.
This was where the Midnight Sect locked away things it feared could no longer be controlled.
Laura was one of those things.
Ezio walked alone.
The guards did not follow.
Not because they trusted him.
Because they did not want to be close to what waited at the end of this corridor.
A heavy obsidian gate stood sealed by six rotating runic locks, each glowing with oni-suppressing sigils that bit into the air like hooks. Blood flowed through thin channels in the floor, feeding the spellwork. Every few seconds the runes flared, as if reaffirming their grip on something inside.
Ezio stopped before the gate.
The Casanova Ring pulsed.
Not with seduction.
With empathy sharpened into a blade.
The Machiavelli Ring whispered calculations:
Oni blood. Regeneration high. Rage amplification. Trauma instability. Probability of violent reaction: near certainty.
Lucifer's warmth coiled beneath them:
Good. Real monsters are the easiest to understand.
Ezio placed his palm on the cold obsidian.
The gate opened.
The smell hit him first.
Blood. Burnt metal. Something wild and almost sweet beneath it—like the scent of a predator's breath when it has just finished feeding.
Laura was suspended at the center of the chamber.
Not hanging.
Pinned.
Chains of hell-iron pierced her shoulders, hips, thighs—driven through muscle and bone into the floating crystal behind her. The crystal pulsed with crimson light, siphoning her oni energy away in slow, deliberate waves.
Her feet did not touch the ground.
Her head was bowed.
Her hair—dark, wild, stained with dried blood—hid her face.
She was breathing.
Fast.
Like an animal forced to run until its lungs tore.
Ezio stepped inside.
The runes flared.
Laura lifted her head.
Her eyes were no longer just red.
They were fractured—like broken mirrors reflecting rage from a thousand directions.
"You," she snarled. "They sent you back?"
"They sent me to make you useful."
Her laughter was raw and broken.
"Everyone wants me useful."
Ezio walked closer.
Every instinct in his body screamed that this was suicide.
Laura's aura lashed against the barrier as he approached, burning the air, warping the light. Her power was vast—far greater than anything Ezio had possessed in his old world.
And yet…
She was helpless.
Because rage without direction was just fire in a cage.
Ezio stopped just outside the inner runic circle.
He looked at her wounds.
Not just the physical ones.
The invisible ones—the places where she had been told she was nothing but a weapon, where obedience was beaten into her bones.
"You don't even see yourself anymore," Ezio said quietly.
Laura bared her teeth.
"I see enough to kill."
"That's all they want you to see."
"Shut up!"
Her chains rattled as she strained forward, blood dripping where metal bit into flesh.
Ezio did not raise his voice.
"Do you know why they didn't send a vampire to talk to you?" he asked.
Laura snarled. "Because I'd tear them apart."
"No," Ezio said. "Because vampires see you as meat. Demons see you as a tool. Witches see you as a curse."
He took one more step closer, letting the heat of her aura scorch his skin.
"I see you as a choice."
Laura froze.
For a heartbeat, the storm inside her stuttered.
"What… are you saying?"
"I'm saying you can keep being their weapon," Ezio said softly, "or you can become mine."
Her laughter returned—bitter, broken.
"You're a slave."
"Yes."
"And you think I'd follow a slave?"
Ezio met her gaze.
"I think you'd follow someone who refuses to stay one."
The Tarot Core stirred.
A faint thread of fate shimmered between them, invisible but real.
Laura felt it.
Her breath hitched.
"What did you do to me?"
"I showed you a door," Ezio said. "You just didn't know it was there."
Laura trembled—not with fear, but with something far more dangerous.
Hope.
"You don't know what I am," she whispered.
"I know exactly what you are," Ezio replied. "A storm that's been taught to only strike when commanded."
Her eyes burned.
"They broke me."
"Yes."
"And you think you can fix me?"
"No," Ezio said.
"I think I can aim you."
Silence.
Then Laura screamed.
Not in rage.
In pain.
The crystal behind her pulsed harder, draining more of her power as her emotional control faltered.
Ezio saw it—the way the Midnight Sect punished weakness even when that weakness was vulnerability.
He didn't hesitate.
He stepped into the runic circle.
The wards flared violently, burning his skin, tearing at his soul.
Pain ripped through his body.
The Casanova Ring screamed in protest.
The Machiavelli Ring calculated survival odds: catastrophic.
Lucifer laughed.
Good. Now it's real.
Laura stared at him in shock.
"What are you doing?!"
"Getting closer."
"You'll die!"
"Maybe."
Ezio forced himself forward until he stood beneath her, blood dripping from his palms where the runes cut into him.
"Look at me," he said.
Laura's eyes locked onto his.
He raised his hand and touched her ankle.
The contact sent a shock through both of them.
The Tarot Core flared.
A connection snapped into place.
Laura gasped.
Her rage faltered.
"What… is this?"
"A bond," Ezio whispered. "Not of chains. Of choice."
Her breathing turned ragged.
"You're insane."
"Probably."
Ezio met her gaze.
"But so are you. That's why this works."
Laura felt something shift inside her—a faint, terrifying sensation that she was no longer entirely alone in her cage.
Tears burned at the edges of her eyes.
"Why?" she whispered.
Ezio's voice was quiet.
"Because I know what it's like to be turned into something you never asked to become."
The crystal behind her pulsed again, trying to tear the connection apart.
Ezio grit his teeth.
He tightened his grip.
"Choose me," he said.
Laura screamed.
The chains rattled.
For a moment, the entire chamber shook.
Then—
One chain cracked.
Not broken.
Cracked.
Laura's eyes widened.
"You… did that."
"No," Ezio said softly.
"You did."
She stared at him.
Then slowly—hesitantly—she nodded.
"I choose you."
The Tarot Core burned.
A blood-red thread sealed between them.
The first queen had been claimed.
Not by ownership.
By rebellion.
Ezio collapsed to one knee as the runes hurled him back out of the circle.
Laura screamed—not in pain this time, but in fury at the crystal draining her again.
But something had changed.
The storm had a direction now.
Ezio looked up at her, blood on his hands, fire in his eyes.
"Hold on," he whispered.
"I'm coming back for you."
And in the depths of the Midnight Palace, a monster had just chosen a king.