"Knight to F6."
Click.
The sound of polished ivory striking a solid wooden board echoed crisply in the pristine, unnervingly quiet room.
"You are too aggressive today, Sela," Lynus's voice drifted through the cool air. It was smooth, aristocratic, and laced with a casual, terrifying amusement. The faint clinking of ice in a glass followed his words. "Are you in a hurry?"
"N-no, Lord Lynus." Sela's voice answered. It was trembling, completely stripped of its usual flawless, nun-like composure. "Pawn... Pawn to D4."
Click.
Silence stretched. Beneath the elegant sounds of the chess game, there was another noise. A ragged, suppressed, incredibly heavy sound of breathing. It didn't belong to Lynus. It didn't belong to Sela.
"Bishop to C4," Lynus mused, ignoring the heavy breathing entirely. "You are leaving your flank exposed, Sister."
A long pause. A drop of liquid hit the immaculate white floor with a microscopic splat.
"Check..." Sela's voice wavered violently, as if terrified of her own move. "Check, my Lord."
Click.
A heavy sigh escaped Lynus. The clinking of ice stopped. "Disappointing."
THUD!
Without warning, a vicious, heavy kick struck the "stool" Sela was sitting on. The impact sent a violent, sickening tremor through the base.
"Ugh—!" A muffled, choked grunt of pure agony erupted from beneath the nun.
The world tilted dangerously. Erika bit down on his lower lip so hard he tasted copper, his eyes wide and bloodshot, staring at the pristine white tiles inches from his face. He desperately locked his core, forcing his trembling, hyper-strained muscles to fight the sudden shift in weight.
He wasn't sitting. He wasn't tied to a chair.
He was the chair.
Sweat poured from Erika's forehead, pooling into a small, salty puddle on the cold floor. He was holding a one-armed plank.
His left arm, corded with bulging, unnaturally developed muscle, bore the entire, agonizing weight of his own suspended body—and the weight of Sister Sela, who was sitting side-saddle directly across his lower back. Where his right arm should have been, the empty grey sleeve of his straightjacket hung uselessly, brushing against his trembling ribs. The asymmetrical balance was a living hell, tearing at his spine and shoulder.
But he didn't collapse.
I will be good. I will be good. The twisted promise he made echoed in his hollowed mind. His physical strength had been pushed to its absolute prime by whatever they had done to him, but his will was entirely theirs.
"Steady now, 'furniture'," Lynus sneered, looking down from his plush armchair at the human bench trembling on the floor. His pale blue eyes were cold and full of mockery. "If your shaking makes the Sister drop her piece, I will have to dismantle you and put you back together again."
Lynus picked up his king and his rook. "Castling," he announced flatly.
Click. Click.
"Your move, Sister. And tell your seat to stop panting so loudly."
THWACK!
Another brutal kick landed directly on Erika's floating ribs. The air was violently expelled from his lungs. His left elbow buckled a fraction of an inch, dropping Sela slightly, before he forced it straight again with a strangled, blood-curdling hiss.
Sela gasped softly above him, but she didn't dare move to alleviate the weight. She fell into a long, suffocating contemplation over the chessboard.
Seconds stretched into agonizing minutes. For the Sister, it was a tactical puzzle. For the "stool", it was an eternity in purgatory. The lactic acid in Erika's remaining arm felt like boiling lead. His muscles were twitching violently, on the absolute brink of total structural failure. If he collapsed, if he dropped her... Lynus would kill him. Slowly.
I can't... I can't hold it...
In the depths of his despair, an instinct older than his domestication flared. Deep within his chest, beneath the layers of trauma and forced obedience, the dormant Mark stirred.
Erika didn't dare summon the golden light—Lynus would see it. But with desperate, microscopic precision, he willed just a single, invisible thread of that alien energy to circulate.
Just a drop.
It lasted for less than a heartbeat. A faint, phantom current bypassed his blocked channels and swept through his left arm. The effect was instantaneous. The boiling agony in his torn muscle fibers cooled, patched by the stolen energy. The violent shaking smoothed out. He gasped quietly, hiding the profound relief behind a feigned cough.
Above him, Lynus grew bored of the long silence. He began to speak, his voice drifting lazily.
"You know, Sela, it's a funny thing about breaking wild animals. If you hit them too hard, they die. If you don't hit them hard enough, they bite. The trick is to find exactly where their spine bends without snapping. Wouldn't you agree?"
Sela swallowed audibly. "Q-Queen to H4." Her hand shook as she placed the piece. "...Check."
The temperature in the room instantly plummeted.
Lynus did not speak. The silence that followed was thick, toxic, and terrifying. Erika could hear the ice melting in the glass. He could feel Sela trembling violently against his back.
"Check..." Lynus murmured. The word sounded like a curse. "How... inconvenient."
Lynus picked up a piece. He held it suspended over the board, hesitating. "Should I move here...?"
BAM!
Erika's head snapped to the side. An invisible, telekinetic blunt force struck him directly in the jaw. Blood instantly filled his mouth.
"...Or should I move here?" Lynus continued, his voice dripping with venomous frustration.
CRACK!
Another unseen blow slammed into Erika's unprotected stomach. Then his thigh. Then his shoulder.
Lynus was venting the irritation of his losing game directly onto the human furniture. Erika was being pummeled from all directions by invisible kicks and strikes. He grunted and choked, blood dripping from his nose onto the white tiles. The stolen energy from the Mark was instantly overwhelmed by the sheer, concussive trauma. His left arm finally gave way, buckling under the combined weight and the relentless, unseen beating.
He was falling. He was going to drop her.
"I RESIGN!"
Sela shrieked. It wasn't a formal declaration; it was a desperate, terrified scream. Before Erika hit the floor, she violently knocked her own King over with a loud clatter. "I surrender! You win, Lord Lynus! You win!"
The invisible blows stopped instantly.
Erika's arm completely gave out. He collapsed flat onto his stomach, the breath exploding from his lungs as Sela hurriedly scrambled off his back. He lay there, pressing his bruised, bloody face against the cold floor, gasping for air like a dying fish, his single arm twitching uncontrollably in the aftermath.
"Ah!" Lynus clapped his hands together, a bright, genuinely joyous sound echoing in the room. The oppressive terror vanished, replaced by the sunny disposition of a spoiled child who had just gotten his way. "Excellent game, Sister! Truly a masterclass in strategy. Set the board again. I feel like playing white this time."
Erika lay collapsed on the pristine tiles, his chest heaving violently. Every ragged gasp tore at his bruised ribs. Blood and sweat pooled beneath his cheek, staining the immaculate floor. He didn't try to get up. Furniture doesn't move itself.
"Please, my Lord," Sela's voice trembled above him, dropping her flawless composure for one of desperate, breathless pleading. "The... the seat is broken. He cannot endure another match today. I beg of you."
"Oh, stop whining, Sela," Lynus groaned, tossing a captured ivory pawn into the air and catching it. He sounded like a petulant, spoiled child denied a second dessert. "I just won! I barely even got to warm up. You ruined the climax by knocking over your own king. How is that fair to me?"
The standoff hung in the freezing air.
Erika remained paralyzed on his side, his single arm twitching involuntarily from severe muscle failure. He didn't dare look up at the Blue Cloak. Instead, his hollow, bloodshot eyes were fixed entirely on the hem of Sela's white habit. He stared at her with the unsettling, unblinking intensity of a completely broken, domesticated animal.
THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.
Three sharp, heavy raps on the thick oak door shattered the room's tense atmosphere.
Lynus clicked his tongue in profound annoyance, his childish demeanor instantly hardening into cold irritation. "Duty calls for the victor," he sighed dramatically. He pointed a finger at the nun. "Set the board. Exactly as it was. Don't touch anything else until I return."
He strode across the room, his boots clicking sharply against the tiles, and slipped out. The heavy door clicked shut behind him, the mechanical lock engaging with a final clack.
Sela stood frozen. She stared at the closed door for a long, agonizing moment, ensuring his footsteps had truly faded down the corridor. Only then did her rigid posture crumble.
She slowly turned her head and looked down.
Erika was still staring at her. He hadn't moved an inch. His gaze was unnervingly empty, completely devoid of accusation, hatred, or even pain. It was the gaze of a discarded object, quietly waiting for its user's input.
Sela's breath hitched. She couldn't hold his stare. She quickly lowered her eyes, dodging his hollow look, her hands clutching the fabric of her skirt until her knuckles turned white.
"I'm sorry..." she whispered into the silence. The words were fragile, choked with a pathetic, useless guilt.
Erika heard the words, but they didn't compute. Sorry? What did that mean in this room? Was it a command? Was it a prelude to a punishment? He didn't move. He didn't wipe the blood from his chin. He simply lay there, shivering slightly against the freezing tiles, his empty grey sleeve draped across his ribs, patiently waiting for the Sister to tell him what to do next.