Chapter 19 – The Name They Gave Me
Yuji's heart was still hammering from the dream when he spoke.
"I saw it."
Ren didn't react.
"You were younger. Shackled. They called you… Subject 07." Yuji swallowed hard. "What the hell were they doing to you, Ren?"
Still silence.
Yuji took a step closer. "You can't keep hiding this from me. Not after what I saw. Not after what they're doing to us. Tell me what you are."
---
Ren finally looked up.
For once, his calm was gone. There was something raw in his expression — anger, exhaustion, maybe even shame.
"They didn't call me Ren," he said quietly. "Not then."
Yuji blinked. "…What?"
"They called me Subject 07. That was my name for the first sixteen years of my life."
Yuji's stomach dropped. "Sixteen— You grew up there?"
Ren nodded once. "Born and raised in a cage."
---
Yuji's throat tightened. "And the bond? That's… something they did to you?"
Ren let out a bitter laugh. "No. That was the one thing they couldn't control."
Yuji frowned. "Then what—"
"They experimented on people like us," Ren cut in. "People who resonated. Who could tether. They wanted weapons. Soldiers who couldn't be broken because their pain wasn't just their own."
Yuji stared at him, horrified.
"They failed with me," Ren continued. "I wasn't what they wanted. So they planned to erase me. Like they do with all the ones who don't fit their mold."
---
"Then how did you get out?"
Ren's eyes darkened.
For a moment, Yuji thought he wouldn't answer.
Then, quietly:
"I killed them."
Yuji froze.
Ren didn't elaborate. Didn't flinch.
"They called me a monster. Maybe they were right."
---
The room felt smaller, heavier, with those words hanging between them.
Yuji didn't know what to say.
And for once, Ren didn't look like the calm, unshakable man who had saved him.
He looked like someone still carrying the weight of every life he'd taken.