After a few hours of walking, the duo decided to rest for a bit. Kaiser sat silently on the riverbank, his boots sinking slightly into the dense carpet of spun silk that blanketed the ground. Tiny spiders scuttled across his arms and legs, their delicate legs tracing ghostlike paths over his skin, as if he were simply another extension of their world. He did not flinch at their antics.

  Beyond the river of cobwebs, half-shrouded within the twisted canopy, the true monsters lingered, their shadowed forms barely distinguishable from the gnarled trees. They did not creep closer now. They only watched, silent and waiting. Held at bay by the presence of the girl sitting beside him.

  Aria sat with her knees drawn to her chest, her pink hair tangled and matted, falling over her face like a tattered veil. She had screamed herself hoarse an hour ago, and now only a broken whisper emerged from her lips, slicing through the suffocating quiet.

  "I... I'm sorry..." she murmured, her voice cracking.

  Kaiser turned his head slightly, his expression devoid of judgment. "There is nothing to apologize for," he said, voice as even and unyielding as stone.

  Aria stared blankly at a small puddle beside her, watching her own distorted reflection ripple and fade in the water. It looked nothing like her — only a ghost of what she had once been.

  "I never wanted any of this," she whispered, hollow. "I never wanted to hurt anyone..."

  Kaiser shifted his weight, resting his forearms loosely across his knees, his red eyes never leaving the twisted forest. "No one asks for the battlefield, that’s something that the world shoves under your feet. The only choice you have is whether to stand or die on it."

  She turned toward him, hollow eyes searching his face as if trying to find the faintest crack of kindness to cling to. But he offered none. Only a steady, cold presence — unmovable and incorruptible.

  "Why?" she asked after a long silence. "Why did you help me?"

  Kaiser did not answer immediately. His gaze rose to the dark canopy above, the memories of endless wars and fallen empires burning like embers in his mind. When he spoke, his voice was low and final. "Because you hadn't fallen yet," he said. "You were still fighting. Even broken. Even bleeding. You fought." His gaze cut into her like a blade. "I don't leave strength to rot."

  Aria flinched as if struck, but said nothing. Her hand brushed the earth beside her, trembling slightly. "You’re wrong," she muttered bitterly. "I'm a monster. I can feel it. Everyone else saw it."

  Kaiser tilted his head, a slow, deliberate motion. "Perhaps you are," he said, voice devoid of malice. "But monsters are strong. And strength is a language I respect."

  Her breath hitched in her chest. She looked away, wrapping her arms tighter around herself. The words, harsh but at the same time unmerciful, somehow cut deeper than pity ever could.

  Kaiser leaned back slightly, the faintest shadow of a smirk ghosting his lips. "Besides," he added, voice cool and amused, "Men with crowns and armies couldn't leave a scratch on me. And you, crying and half-dead, managed to ruin my coat."

  At that, her shoulders shook, not from fear this time, but from the first fragile hint of laughter she hadn't felt a year. A dry, cracked, almost broken sound escaped her lips, and she buried her face in her arms.

  "You’re funny." she mumbled.

  "And you're still alive to laugh," Kaiser countered, rising smoothly to his feet. He extended a hand down to her, not in kindness, but in expectation, as if he was ordering her to grab it.

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  Aria hesitated, staring up at him, before slipping her cold, brittle fingers into his. He pulled her upright without effort, steadying her when her legs threatened to give out.

  They began walking side by side through the woods again, their steps crunching against the thick webs underfoot. Aria kept glancing up at him, unable to help herself, studying the strange man who had become her unlikely shield. After a minute, she broke the silence. "It’s strange," she muttered. "I’ve never met anyone like you."

  Kaiser kept his eyes forward, the hint of a smirk playing at the corner of his mouth. "Strange in a good way or a bad way?"

  "I'm not sure yet," she admitted, her voice lighter. "Most people would’ve killed me by now. For what I’ve done to them... for the memories I dragged out of them."

  Kaiser finally turned his head to look at her, his gaze hard but not unkind. "I’ve seen enough death to know one thing: monsters are made, not born. And the ones who survive deserve to walk, even if the world wants them crawling."

  Her steps faltered slightly. She looked down, voice trembling. "But the forest, the monsters... the memories... they’re all my fault."

  He stopped walking, turning fully toward her, towering like a black statue carved from storm clouds and willpower. "Listen to me," he said, voice sharp as a blade’s edge. "Those knights… No, not knights, those weak men caused your village’s fall. Their sloth, their greed, their hunger. You are not the weight of their sins. Stop carrying what isn’t yours."

  Aria swallowed hard, shame and doubt warring inside her.

  "You can't change the hand you were dealt," Kaiser continued, voice steady. "You can only choose how to play it. That’s all that ever matters."

  Slowly, haltingly, she nodded.

  They walked again, side by side, and for a long stretch neither spoke. The forest seemed less suffocating now, the twisted branches less like claws reaching to tear them apart. The world itself, once so suffocating in its malice, seemed to retreat before their steps.

  Finally, Aria spoke again, her voice a thin thread of sound. "Kaiser... why did you let me walk with you? Even if you didn’t kill me… you could’ve left me behind."

  Kaiser did not slow down. He kept walking, his steps as deliberate and inevitable as a tide grinding down a cliffside. His eyes swept the forest, but his voice carried back to her without hesitation, like a cold iron weight she could not ignore.

  ‘Because you belong to me now,’ he thought, the truth of it burning into the back of his mind like a brand on raw flesh. ‘And I do not discard what is mine. Even the strongest weapons need a hand to wield them.’

  But what he said aloud was different.

  "Because no one deserves to be left behind after surviving what you have," he said, voice low and steady. "And because the road ahead is too cruel for you to walk alone."

  Aria stumbled at the force of those words, blinking up at him with wide, hollow eyes. But when she looked into his face, she found no mockery there. No cruelty. Only certainty, as if he had spoken an absolute fact.

  She swallowed thickly, her heart hammering against her ribs, and realized there was no room for doubt anymore. There was no condescension in his voice, no pity. Only command, but a command she could endure.

  Kaiser continued walking, his silhouette cutting forward through the mist, and after a few steps, a faint, dry amusement edged into his mind, the kind that could cut without ever raising a blade. "In all my years," he mused silently, "across all the battles I fought, all the kingdoms I crushed, all the champions who threw themselves at me... not one of them ever managed what you did."

  Aria blinked, confused, struggling to keep pace with the sudden shift in his tone. "What do you mean?"

  Kaiser glanced at her from the corner of his eye, the faintest ghost of a smirk curling his mouth. "They all tried to stain my uniform with blood and ash...." His hand brushed the front of his coat lightly, almost dismissively. "None succeeded."

  He let the silence stretch for a beat before adding, voice low and dry, "And then you came along. Half-dead. Crying into my chest. And you ruined it in minutes."

  Aria stared at him, stunned — and then, against all odds, a small, incredulous laugh slipped from her lips. It was not the brittle, broken sound of before, but something warmer. "I guess... I’m stronger than I thought," she said, almost dazed.

  Kaiser’s smirk sharpened into something closer to approval. "Strong enough," he agreed. "Strong enough that you walk beside me now."

  ‘The weeping child will die soon enough,’ he thought with clinical certainty.

  There was no more need for words after that. They moved forward through the dying forest, a broken girl and a relentless conqueror, carving a path into a world that had long since decided neither of them should exist.

  Me and the homie after saying 'it can’t get worse' for the 7th time this week.