The cold floor was unforgiving, but it no longer mattered. Her body trembled in the darkness of the alley, blood seeping from the deep gash in her side. The pain was excruciating, but it was nothing compared to the numbness that had settled in her heart. Each breath she took felt like it could be her last, yet it didn't matter. Her life had already ended a long time ago, piece by piece.
Laughter echoed in the distance—mocking, cruel laughter. She could hear their voices clearly, even though her vision was fading. *They're celebrating, aren't they?* The thought twisted her insides. She was nothing but a joke to them, an insignificant pawn to be discarded when no longer needed.
Her mind drifted back to the beginning, to how it all started. She remembered being so full of hope, so full of belief that things would get better. How foolish she had been. She had been raised to believe in kindness, in love, in friendship. But all those ideals had shattered one by one, like delicate glass thrown onto the ground.
*He* had been the first one to break her. The one person she had trusted above all others. She had loved him—truly loved him—giving him everything she had, heart and soul. He had promised her the world, told her she was the only one, the one he'd always choose. She had believed every word, wrapped herself in his lies like a warm blanket. But he hadn't loved her. Not really.
He had loved the power she gave him, the influence, the control. When she became an inconvenience, when she no longer served his purpose, he had cast her aside. And it wasn't even the betrayal that had crushed her—it was the coldness with which he had done it. She had seen the love in his eyes vanish, replaced by something darker, something colder. His words echoed in her ears now, the ones he had said before he turned away.
"You were never good enough."
Her chest tightened at the memory, the sharp sting of those words still fresh in her mind. The same words he had said before abandoning her.
She had tried to pick up the pieces of her broken heart, tried to move on, but she hadn't been able to. Everywhere she went, people treated her the same way—like she was nothing. Those who pretended to be her friends turned on her the moment it was convenient for them. She was nothing but a tool to be used, an object to be discarded when she no longer served a purpose. Kiniko, the girl who had once been full of life and dreams, had been reduced to a shadow, a broken reflection of who she had once been.
Her life had been a series of unrelenting betrayals. The ones she had trusted, the ones she had loved, had all turned on her, leaving her to bleed out in this dark corner of the world. Alone. Forgotten.
And now, as her blood slowly pooled around her on the cold stone, she realized that this was it. There would be no redemption, no grand ending. Just... nothing. She had been discarded like an unwanted thing, a piece of trash no one cared about.
*I've been a fool,* she thought bitterly, her mind hazy from blood loss. *I believed in them. I believed in love. I believed in kindness. But it was all a lie.* Her body was growing colder, her limbs heavy. She could feel the darkness creeping in, wrapping around her like a shroud.
But before she could sink into the void, before her mind could fully surrender to the blackness, a final thought flickered through her tortured mind.
*What if…* she wondered. *What if this isn't the end?*
Her breath hitched, the thought almost laughable. *What if there's something more after this?*
Her hand twitched as she reached for the wound in her side, a desperate, feeble attempt to stop the bleeding. But it was too late. Her eyes fluttered closed, and with one last, shaky exhale, she whispered the only words that came to her in her final moments.
"This isn't the end... not for me."
And then, everything went still.
She didn't know how much time had passed, but when she awoke, it felt like a dream. Her eyes slowly fluttered open, her vision blurry, and she blinked against the unfamiliar light that poured into the room. She sat up, confusion flooding her senses. The room she was in was nothing like the alley she had died in. The air was warm and thick, the kind of warmth she hadn't felt in years. The scent of incense lingered in the air, mixing with the faint scent of roses and herbs.
She raised her hand instinctively, her fingers trembling slightly. She didn't know why, but she did it anyway. She whispered something under her breath, some ancient word she couldn't remember learning, and before she could even process what was happening, a small spark of light flickered into existence above her palm.
A burst of energy, raw and powerful, surged through her. She stared at her hand, utterly shocked, and then slowly, a smile crept onto her face.
*So... this is what it feels like to be powerful.*
She turned back to the mirror, watching herself as the reflection grinned back at her, a glint of something dangerous in her eyes. The woman she had become wasn't just alive again—she was reborn. Reborn as something else entirely.
The door to the room creaked open, but Kiniko didn't hear it. She was too lost in her reflection, her own transformation.
A voice called out softly, but it was drowned out by the rush of magic and power that pulsed around her.
"Madam Gianne,you're awake"