𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐄𝐃𝐆𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐎𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐑𝐎𝐖 || 𝐉𝐔𝐉𝐔𝐓𝐒𝐔 𝐊𝐀𝐈𝐒𝐄𝐍

Chapter 10: Resurface

Even as she lay unconscious, Mina wasn't resting. Not as the nightmares from the past and present warred inside her mind, flaying her nerves until they lay raw and bleeding.

Fear weighed on her chest like a stone, forcing the air out of her lungs as her breathing became more erratic.

In the dark waters of her dreams, a face rippled across it. The face she saw back in the cursed domain which the eidolon curse had shown her.

The face of the only one she feared.

As far as she knew, he had only ever gone by one name. Seki.

His informal title only cultivated fear among people as the Magister.

His serene yet vicious face floated behind her eyelids as Mina dreamt of her confinement in a small windowless room. It was so small that she could stand in the middle and stretch her arms out, her fingertips touching either side with ease. The room was empty, save for a bed and a small wooden table. The room had no source of light, leaving the room in a perpetual state of darkness. Her handlers regulated the temperature of the room frequently, so the room was always either too cold or too hot, designed so she would never feel comfortable, and therefore never let her guard down.

Psychological torture was a favourite of theirs. Mina knew that Seki had warned them not to scar her, but that didn't mean they didn't get her to comply through other means, often finding inventive ways of making her cooperate.

She remembered this was her punishment.

One of many.

She had disobeyed him again, as his reluctant instrument of death and destruction.

She remembered lying in the pitch-black room, waiting days or weeks. Time was only a distant concept to her.

She stopped eating three days into her confinement, forcing them to remove her from the room and inject her with nutrients and supplements against her will.

Her small rebellions got her nowhere. They always won.

"Memory is a powerful thing," she remembered Seki telling her as she lay strapped to a surgical table after one of her 'tantrums' left three of her handlers dead, their bodies mangled beyond recognition.

She could never call him Seki to his face, it was always "Sir" or "The Magister." No amount of loathing could overcome the fear that was skilfully engrained into her.

"Your mind is different from your body. While the body can be broken, the mind is not so easy to deal with. However, once I have broken your mind, I will also have your body and soul." Seki spoke calmly, his dark grey eyes boring holes into hers as she lay strapped onto the medical table, wires from the beeping machines around her snaking into her body, measuring her vitals and pumping unknown liquids into her.

"That's why it's all the more rewarding when you are made to submit."

Seki noticed her gaze on the wires.

"This is all for you Mina. This will make you stronger," he said, stroking her cheek gently. She flinched away from his touch, which didn't go unnoticed. Seki's face went blank, his features revealing nothing.

"In the future, everything will make sense. One day you will thank me." He moved to touch her cheek again, but she flinched away from him.

"One day, I'm going to kill you," she seethed as she struggled in the restraints, feeling the chill of the liquid from the tubes settling in her blood.

Seki merely chuckled, looking down at her still form on the table, admiring her thrashing form one admires a prize horse.

"You won't even remember hating me."