There I was. Awake… yet powerless.Filled with memories… yet unable to move.
The chains held me firmly against the ground, biting into my flesh, anchoring me to the very soil that had once given me peace. Around me, the world continued to burn. Smoke curled into the sky, carrying with it the last breaths of a life I had tried so desperately to protect.
But now…
I understood everything.
The confusion that had once clouded my mind was gone. The emptiness that had defined my existence in the valley had been replaced by something far heavier.
Truth. And that truth was unbearable. I understood the hatred. I understood the pain. And most of all…I understood why he had come for me.
The masked man standing before me was not just another soldier. He was not just another enemy. He was something far more personal. Far more dangerous. He was my rival. The one who had always stood in my shadow. The one who had walked beside me in war, trained beside me in blood, and fought beside me under the command of the same master. The one who had always been second. And now… I remembered his name.
It surfaced slowly, like something rising from deep water, familiar, yet heavy with meaning.
A name that once felt like that of a brother. But he had never been my brother. Not truly. Not in the way that mattered.
The Weight of Memory
The memories did not return gently. They crashed into me. Relentless. Unforgiving. Every mission. Every battlefield. Every command I had obeyed without question. I saw them all.Villages reduced to ash beneath my orders.Lives ended by my hands.
Faces—so many faces—each one carrying a story I had never cared to understand.Back then, it had been simple. There were orders. And there was obedience. Nothing else mattered. Not morality. Not mercy,Not consequence.
Zoro had made sure of that.
He had stripped away everything unnecessary. Everything human. Until all that remained…was a weapon. And that weapon had been me.
Zoro's finest creation.
The Marked Wolf.
A soldier who did not hesitate. A leader who did not question. A force that did not stop. Now, as those memories tore through me, I understood something I had never allowed myself to feel before. I had never known peace… Because I had never deserved it.
The quiet life I had lived in the valley—the laughter, the warmth, the love—it had all been borrowed time. A fragile illusion. Because men like me did not get to keep such things. We destroyed them. Even when we tried not to. The Truth of What I Was
I lay there, unable to move, as the reality settled deep within my bones. I was not Kal.
Kal had been a dream.
A second chance I had never earned.
The truth was far darker.
I was Narito Tiza.
A weapon born in blood. Forged in suffering. Sharpened by war. Sent into the world to break it. And no matter how far I ran… No matter how deeply I buried it… That truth had found me again. Because the past does not disappear.
It waits. It watches. And when it returns… It takes everything.
Acceptance
For a long time, I had fought against that truth. Even without my memories, something inside me had resisted it. Had tried to become something different.
Something better.
But now there was no more resistance. No more denial. I could feel it clearly. There was nowhere left to run. Nowhere left to hide. And no fight left to continue.
The battle had already been decided long before this moment.
Slowly… painfully…
I accepted it. Not with anger. Not with defiance. But with a quiet, crushing understanding.
This was who I was. And this… was how it would end.
The Last Thought
The pain in my body began to fade. Not because it had lessened. But because something else had taken its place. Exhaustion. Complete. Overwhelming.
My vision blurred as darkness crept into the edges of my sight. The world around me became distant. Fading. And in that final moment—just before everything slipped away—one thought rose above all others.
Lara.
Her name alone cut through the storm inside me. It brought light into the darkness. Calm into the chaos. I saw her face. Her smile. The way her eyes softened whenever she looked at me. Then came another thought.
Our child.
The life we had created together. The future we had dreamed of. A future that would never come. A child I would never hold. A family I would never protect. A life I would never live again. All I wanted… In that final moment… Was for them to be safe. Even if I could not be there. Even if I could never see them again. Let them live. Let them be free from the shadow that had consumed me.
The Darkness
And then…
Everything went black. But my story did not end there. Because the attack on the village…Had never truly been about me. I had only been part of the plan. A valuable target, yes. But not the only one. Not even the most important one. The true purpose revealed itself in the aftermath. The children. Infants. Toddlers. Those too young to remember. Too young to resist. Too young to understand the world they had been born into. They were the real prize. The soldiers moved with cold precision, separating them from the rest.Not randomly. Not carelessly. But deliberately. They knew exactly what they were looking for. Children between the ages of zero and four. The perfect age. An age where the mind could still be shaped.
Broken.
Rebuilt.
Turned into something else.Something dangerous. Something obedient. Just like I had been. That was the plan. That was the endgame.
The Cost
And the rest of the village?
They were never meant to survive. The elderly—killed without hesitation. The strong men—eliminated before they could resist.
The young boys—cut down before they could grow into threats. Anyone who might one day rise in revenge… Was erased.
No mercy.
No second chances.
Only calculation. Only efficiency. Only purpose.
What Remained
But not everyone was killed. Some were spared. Not out of kindness. Not out of mercy. But out of usefulness. Infants were taken. Pregnant women were kept alive.
Young women—those deemed "suitable"—were dragged away.
Not as survivors. But as tools. Forced into a future they did not choose. A future designed to produce more children. More soldiers,More weapons. An endless cycle. War feeding war. Pain creating more pain. Generation after generation.
The Truth of the World
This was the truth.
The truth I had once been a part of.
The truth that had created me.
A world where lives were not valued. Only their usefulness. A world where children were not protected. But prepared. Prepared for war. Prepared for suffering. Prepared to become something less than human.
And now…
That same world had come to claim me again.Not just as its creation. But as its property. As its weapon. As its legacy. And as the darkness closed in around me, one final truth settled into my fading consciousness. This was not just my story. This was the story of a world built on cruelty.
And I…
Had been one of its greatest creations.