Having your mind read felt like someone reorganizing your mental furniture while you watched. Foreign thoughts rifled through his memories with the delicacy of a tsunami, pulling up everything from his first day of school to his last moments in the convenience store.
Mayfell saw it all: Tokyo's skyline glittering with captured lightning. Trains that moved like precision clockwork. His grandfather's gentle smile. Yui walking away. The purple mist coming for everyone but taking only him.
When the spell retreated, leaving him feeling violated and empty, Mayfell's expression had changed. The cold authority cracked, showing something that might have been wonder or might have been horror.
"You're not lying." She said it like the words hurt. "You're truly human. The last pure human."
"Fantastic. Do I get a prize? Maybe a 'Last of My Species' loyalty card?"
"You don't understand." Mayfell stood abruptly, pacing the small room with jerky movements. "Humans were the architects of the old world. They built wonders, conquered nature, reached for the stars. And then they destroyed it all. The Burning. The Void Wars. The creation of the Cursed Mists that still poison our lands."
"Sounds like us," Ren admitted. "We were always better at breaking things than fixing them."
"The settlement that fell fifty years ago—Goldenvale—we thought they were human descendants. But they were impure elves, results of ancient mixing between our species. They had rounded ears, strange eye colors, shorter lifespans. The mist targeted them specifically, seeking any trace of human genetics."
So the mist is programmed. Seeking human DNA. But why did it spare me?
"My parents died trying to save them," Mayfell continued, her voice dropping to barely a whisper. "Held the mist back for hours while refugees escaped. Three thousand impure elves fled that day. Within a year, they were all dead. The mist had marked them somehow. Poisoned them on a level we couldn't heal."
The weight of her words settled like stones in Ren's stomach. "I'm sorry."
"Are you?" Elanil stepped forward, hand on her sword. "Your kind created the mist. Your wars, your greed, your inability to coexist—they birthed the very thing that killed our people."
"I didn't create anything. I couldn't even create a passing grade in calculus."
"The sins of the ancestors—"
"Are not the sins of the descendants," Mayfell interrupted. "Or have you forgotten that, Elanil?"
The tension crackled between them, old pain and fresh arguments. Ren felt like he was watching a family drama where everyone had weapons and genocidal history.
Rating: 2/10 for comfort, 8/10 for dramatic tension. Would not recommend for conflict resolution.
"Here's what I know," Ren said, breaking the standoff. "The mist hit my world. Killed everyone. Brought me here. If you want to execute me for crimes committed ten thousand years ago by people I've never met, fine. But maybe—just maybe—there's a reason I survived. Maybe I'm here to help. Or maybe I'm just cosmically unlucky. Either way, killing me won't bring anyone back."
Mayfell studied him for a long moment. Then, to everyone's surprise (including her own, judging by her expression), she smiled. It was small and sad and absolutely devastating on her young face.
"No," she agreed. "It won't."