Itsumi trembled. His breath hitched. His body shrank inward as the towering man's shadow loomed over him.
Axios.
The name itself felt like poison.
"Scared?" the man asked, amusement curling in his voice.
Itsumi could only nod, barely holding back a sob.
Axios laughed.
Then came the slap.
A sharp, open-handed strike across the cheek — loud, cruel, and final. Itsumi's head whipped to the side. A red handprint began to bloom across his pale skin.
"Stop crying," Axios snapped, his voice razor-thin. "Screaming won't save you. Crying won't summon angels. No one's coming."
He crouched down, his face inches from Itsumi's.
"There are no heroes here, boy. Not the Public Security of New Eridu. Not the Sons of Calydon. Not the Sixth Division, not Victoria Housekeeping. They won't even know you're gone."
Axios grabbed Itsumi's chin, forcing him to look up.
"You belong to me now. That's your only truth. Your only destiny."
Itsumi's eyes swam with tears. His tiny body shook. But Axios just smirked, studying his fear like a fine wine.
"Do you know why you're alive, Itsumi?"
Silence.
Axios's smile widened — predatory, manic.
"Your whole family was supposed to die. A clean job. Quiet. Untraceable. Your father had debts to pay — loose ends. But you..."
He tapped the boy's forehead with a gloved finger.
"You saw the grenade. You reacted. A five-year-old with that kind of spatial awareness? Instinct like that is rare."
Axios's voice dropped to a whisper, almost intimate:
"If you hadn't moved... maybe you'd be with them now. Dead. But no — you lived. You lived, and now this... this is your punishment."
He rose to his feet, exhaling in satisfaction.
"Take him to the Iron Room," he ordered his men. "Let's start the breaking process."
The chamber was dark — lit only by overhead lamps that cast long, surgical shadows.
In the center stood a steel cruciform column. Cold. Brutal. Silent.
Itsumi was bound to it. Wrists pinned with thick bolts. Ankles tied in heavy leather straps. The metal bit into his skin. He was too weak to struggle. Too scared to scream.
His tears had dried. Only the terror remained now.
Then came the footsteps.
Axios entered, slow and theatrical, holding something in his hand.
A metal rod — thick, jagged, glowing red at the tip.
A branding iron.
"Lesson one," he said softly. "Pain... is a teacher. The only teacher that never lies."
He approached the boy — each step echoing through the chamber like a countdown to hell.
"Let's carve your first lesson deep," Axios whispered. "Let's make sure you never forget... who you are now."
The rod hissed in the air.
And then, the screaming began.