Broken one's pov:
Snow fell without wind.
Not a storm.
Not a blizzard.
Just quiet, persistent descent, as if the sky itself were slowly forgetting the earth.
He walked through that whiteness with no traces left behind him.
Not because he left no footprints.
But because the snow swallowed them too quickly, erasing each step as if it had never existed.
The metal mask was cold, but it did not bother him. Nothing did anymore.
The watch in his pocket ticked.
Every second.
Every minute.
He did not look at it.
He did not need to.
He felt time pressing from behind his eyes, a silent weight that reminded him of what was coming, of what had already begun to vanish.
Each step through the snow pressed not only into the ground but into the hollow inside him. He tried to recall the sound of his name, the warmth of a voice that once called him brother, son… Akero was gone, and so was Airon. Nothing remained but the weight of what he had done, the shadow of what he was about to become.
He remembered the faces of those he had left behind, the faint laugh of Lena, the cold hand of his father in his youth, the eyes of his brother—broken, like him. And yet, all of it felt like a dream, slipping further from reach with every step.
The wind whispered through the branches, carrying the faint scent of pine and smoke from a distant hearth. Each inhalation was a reminder of life continuing without him, and a pain he did not name but felt deep in his chest.
---
The village appeared only when he came close enough to see the rooftops.
There was no smoke.
Smoke is a sign of life.
Of cooking.
Of firewood.
Of breathing.
Here — nothing.
Doors were shut. Windows boarded.
But not abandoned.
Too orderly for abandonment.
He stopped.
Observed.
Three guards by the well.
One man kneeling in the snow.
Two children peering from behind a door, afraid to open it.
He did not react.
The Broken One no longer reacted to such sights.
He studied the pattern.
Who carries the pain?
Who carries the fear?
Who carries the power?
The guards did not carry power.
They carried fear.
Power was in the house on the rise.
Warm windows.
Smoke from a single chimney.
Interesting.
Every flicker of candlelight, every movement, every shadow — he noticed it.
The lord within the house moved with confidence, unaware that every gesture had already been mapped, every breath accounted for.
He lingered a moment, studying the way the wind moved through the village, how the snow gathered against the walls, how every weak link could collapse under pressure. The patterns were small, subtle—but telling.
And yet, the human element always betrayed itself: fear, hope, hesitation.
He thought of the children. Of the man kneeling. Of the guards. What threads tied them to one another, what invisible strings kept their lives in balance? And he knew that a single disruption would ripple through them, invisible but irreversible.
---
Later, when night swallowed the village, he moved.
No dog barked.
No board creaked.
The mask reflected the moonlight like a smile that did not belong to a man.
The door of the house on the rise was not locked.
Power rarely locks its doors.
The lord was dining.
Alone.
He was tired from punishing the poor.
It exhausted him.
The Broken One stood before him before the man realized he was no longer alone.
"Who—"
The word never finished.
There was no monologue.
No judgment.
Only precision.
One movement.
One cut.
One fall.
The blood was quieter than he expected.
The watch ticked.
One.
The Broken One watched the body for several seconds.
He felt no satisfaction.
No guilt.
Only confirmation.
The structure had been removed.
The system would collapse on its own.
The snow outside glistened, indifferent. He wondered, for a moment, if it would remember. If anything in this world would remember that a man had walked here, and that he had chosen a path from which there was no return.
---
Morning arrived slowly, gray and cold.
The village found the lord.
The guards fled before noon.
No one saw who came.
But someone saw traces.
A boy whispered to his sister, "Did you see him?"
"He… he didn't blink," she stammered.
"He smiled," a guard added cautiously, "but not like a man."
The children told each other stories, small exaggerations growing with each telling.
By evening, the tale had changed shape.
By morning — it had a name.
Broken One.
He did not hear it.
He was already walking away.
---
At the edge of the forest, he stopped.
Not from exhaustion.
Not from doubt.
But for something else.
He tried to remember how his old name sounded.
Silence.
Not forgetfulness.
But emptiness.
Like a place where something once stood.
Every flake of snow, every frozen branch, mirrored the void inside him.
He could feel the faint pulse of the watch through his pocket — not just a measure of time, but a reminder that each moment of power carried its own cost. He remembered Lena's words: *"After… time will take what it considers excess."*
The thought was not comforting.
The forest seemed alive in its quiet, every shadow a whisper of what he could never reclaim.
For hours, he walked. He measured the snow with each step, measured the emptiness behind his eyes. Memories rose like thin fog — faces he had known, lives he had touched, and destroyed.
He imagined the screams of villages he would never return to. He imagined the children who might grow up fearing the name Broken One. And yet… he did not stop. He could not.
Every sound, every flicker of movement in the trees, was catalogued. Every frozen branch, every glint of frost, told him the story of a world that was slowly erasing him even as he walked it.
He thought of the boy, of the sister, of the guards. What stories would they tell? Would they speak of fear? Respect? Or simply the impossibility of understanding what had passed before them?
The snow pressed down, silent and impartial. He wondered if he would ever be able to feel anything again. Not sorrow, not remorse, not even satisfaction. The mask remained unfeeling. The watch continued its measured ticks.
Somewhere, far beyond sight, a pattern shifted. Something observed. Not a presence. Not a name. Only a change, subtle, imperceptible, yet undeniable.
The watch ticked.
Two.
He looked down at the snow.
"Seven days," he whispered.
But he was not sure to whom he was speaking.
And he was not sure anyone would remember he had ever walked this path.
The snow was already erasing his steps.
And somewhere far away, something might already have noticed a shift in the pattern.
Not a presence.
Not a name.
A pattern.
The watch continued to tick.