Leo's eyelids fluttered open slowly.
"Where… am I…?"
Her vision was a blur, the sunlight slanting weakly through a small, grimy window. She tried to move.
"I… I can't…"
Panic surged as she forced her eyes wide open.
Horror. Chains bit into her wrists and ankles. A heavy black collar constricted her neck. She was bound to a wooden pillar, her clothes shredded. The room reeked of blood and cut hay, the dim sunlight failing to illuminate the darkness that clung to every corner. A cold wind whispered through the cracks in the walls.
"Damn it… this is… a torture room?!"
She tugged at the chains with desperate strength.
"Shit… I can't even move…"
CLANG!
The iron gate screeched open. Elizabeth stepped inside, a black-and-red whip glinting ominously in her hand.
"Huh?!" Leo's eyes widened, trembling violently.
"Get off me!! What are you trying to do?!"
Her scream echoed, bouncing off the walls like a death knell.
"Shut up, bitch!" Elizabeth's voice cut like a blade. Rage twisted her features. "How dare you call yourself Leo! You deserve to die!"
She advanced, her steps deliberate and terrifying.
"I… I'm not lying! I am Leo! I came from another timeline! Please, you have to understand!"
Fear quivered in Leo's voice. Her golden eyes glistened with unshed tears.
Elizabeth tilted her head, the shadows swallowing her face. A cruel smile curled at the corners of her lips.
"Hehe… you joke so well," she murmured. Then, voice snapping like a whip, she shouted, "But this joke ends here!!!"
The whip lashed forward, striking Leo's chest.
"AGHHH!!"
Blood spurted as Leo cried out, pain ripping through her.
SLASH! SLASH! SLASH!
The strikes came again, relentless, merciless.
"Die, you worthless creature! You dare call yourself Leo?! Die! Go to the grave!!"
The whip moved like a living thing, tearing through fabric, flesh, and bone alike. Leo's body shook violently, tears streaking her face.
"I-I'm telling the truth…" she stammered, voice quivering, trembling with agony.
"AGHHH!!! Are you joking again?!?!" Elizabeth roared, fury itching her neck, every movement, striking harder, faster.
"Die! Die! DIE!!"
SLASH! SLASH! SLASH!
Leo's strength waned. Blood soaked the floor beneath her, her vision swimming in red.
"I… I can't… take it anymore…"
The whip finally stilled. Leo gasped for air, trembling violently, body slick with blood.
Elizabeth grasped her by the throat, eyes burning with rage.
"Woman… tell me… who you really are!"
"I… I… told you before…" Leo's voice cracked. She could barely speak, coughing violently, golden eyes dulled to pale amber.
"What!? What have you told me before!? Say it!" Elizabeth demanded, her fist smashing into Leo's face. Blood mingled with strands of her long brown hair.
"I… I… am Leo Julius Eros… and I always will be!!"
Blood gushed from her mouth as she collapsed, head lowering.
Elizabeth's teeth clenched. "That woman… I will kill that woman!!!"
She began raining blows again. BAM! BAM! BAM!
" You did enough, Elizabeth."
A calm, commanding voice sliced through the chaos.
"Huh!? Battler? How… why are you—" Elizabeth faltered.
"Our Boss ordered me to punish Leo. You can rest now." Battler's smirk cut through the tension.
Elizabeth's rage simmered as she stepped back. "Fine… for you, she survives. I hate her. Always lying."
Battler chuckled. "Haha… well, I'm not here to play savior."
"Then let me handle it."
"Okay."
With that, Elizabeth vanished into the shadows, leaving the room suffused with the metallic scent of blood and the ragged breaths of a survivor.
Battler advanced with a slow, casual gait. Leo's head hung low; the world around her swam into smears of red and gray.
"Uhh… what a pity." Battler's laugh was soft — like someone enjoying a private joke.
He cupped her cheek with a touch that felt softer than it had any right to be. When he lifted her face, Leo's features were a tapestry of blood and bruises.
"You still hurt?" he asked, smirk crawling across his lips.
"I… I already told you the answer," Leo managed, voice ragged, every syllable an effort.
"Answer? Who—no, I didn't ask for—" Battler chuckled in her face, then reached to stroke her long brown hair as if admiring a prize. "It's tragic, really. A girl like you, reduced to this."
He wore a mask of pity that didn't reach his eyes. Leo shoved his hand away, fury and pain flaring together.
"Say what you want!" she spat, anger jagged despite the tremor in her limbs.
Battler closed his eyes, gave a deliberate sigh, then opened them. The amusement drained; his gaze sharpened into something cold and clinical. Golden eyes pinned her like a specimen under glass.
"Why do you keep saying you're Leo Julius Eros? What do you want, miss?" His tone was sharp as a scalpel.
"I—" She swallowed. Her throat scraped; blood coated her lips. "I've told you. I'm Leo Julius Eros from another timeline. I— I need the version you call the boss. That's all."
Battler's smile twitched into mockery as he traced his fingers along his jaw. "So you claim to be Leo Julius Eros… from another timeline?"
"Yes! You have to believe me!"
He cocked his head. "Then tell me—why are you a girl? Or are you the boss's girl-version?"
"No! I was cursed for my sin. It turned me into a girl. I need to break the curse… I need my other timeline—" Her breath hitched; her body shook with the effort.
"Hey, you shouldn't be talking like that in this condition." Battler's voice was dangerously casual. "Your story's interesting… but I don't believe a word."
Rage flared in Leo's sunken eyes. She glared at him, a match in a house of dry kindling.
"Fine then. Since Boss ordered me to torture you, what should I do to you, huh?" Battler grinned as if offering a choice between desserts.
"Get out of my face!" she screamed.
"Hmph." Battler's grin widened. "I can't, Kaío."
BOOM.
The words fell like thunder. A violet flame erupted from his palm and swallowed Leo's body. It wasn't ordinary fire — it crawled across skin and flesh without consuming fabric, a malignant heat that ate sensation and left only a screaming nerve behind.
"Ughhh!!! You—what—ahh." Her voice splintered into a scream.
"It's simple magic," Battler said, almost conversationally. "You won't die. You'll suffer more than with normal fire. Hehe." The smirk was a blade.
The purple blaze traced her veins like black ink. Her screams shredded the air; the agony twisted her into grotesque angles. Flesh felt like it was on fire from the inside out, a constant, intimate torment that would not relent.
"Please… stop this…" she begged, tears hissing as they met heat.
"Stop?" Battler laughed, the sound hollow. "Why should I? I won't stop until you tell me your real goal."
"Ughhh… it's—too—painful…" she thought, but her body betrayed her words; the flames made thought itself a labor.
Night bled across the sky. The purple fire burned until her senses frayed and slipped. Blood dried, crusting into a macabre armor. The single yellow bulb overhead hummed against the silence around her ragged breaths.
CLANG.
The door opened again. A hooded figure slipped into the doorway, clothes the color of dust and old smoke. The hood shadowed half his face; a steel hollow rod dangled in his hand.
"Man… that girl still didn't wake up?" he muttered, annoyance threaded through his voice. He tapped his forehead, then smiled — that grin thin and dangerous. "Well then—let me wake her up, hihi."
He stalked forward and raised the rod. BAM.
The first strike shattered the quiet. The hollow rod smashed against Leo's skull; blood erupted like a fountain. Bone-crack. Flesh tore. The sound was sickeningly final. Still—still—she did not stir.
"Huh? Strange… she's still out?"
The hooded man's expression darkened into something eager. He struck again, and again. Each blow was a punctuation mark of cruelty, each crash a deliberate attempt to force life back into a body that the gang meant only to break.
The night dissolved into a litany of violence. The steel met skull in hard, repeating beats; the room became a chapel of ruin where no mercy was offered. Her limbs twitched. Blood pooled and soaked straw and rotten wood. They beat her until dawn, until the world blurred into a single endless noise of pain, until even the air in the room seemed to shrink away from the smell of iron and smoke.
When the blows finally ceased, silence rolled in like a tide. The gang left their work behind: a ruined, broken thing with a name she still insisted on owning. The door slammed. The lock clicked. Darkness swallowed the room once more.