CHAPTER 85: A POLISHED CAGE

Ishiki froze for a moment and then looked the other way.

Yuki sat up abruptly, clutching his tattered robe to her chest. In the tight confines of the cave, the movement brought her even closer; he could feel the faint brush of her knee against his.

A wash of color crept into her cheeks as she realized that he had been staring.

"What..." She cleared her throat. "What were you looking at?"

’Oh, crap.’

Panic spiked. His brain scrambled for an excuse—’Checking for injuries? Watching the entrance? Counting rocks?’

Instead, his mouth opened and betrayed him.

"Your pretty face."

Awkward silence stretched in the small cave.

Ishiki immediately looked away, scratching the back of his head, trying to summon a nonchalant tone that sounded hopelessly fake.

’Why did i have to be like this? Stupid corruption. Stupid mouth.’

Yuki blinked a few times.

But to Ishiki’s surprise... she didn’t freeze him immediately.

Instead, she was looking at the ground with a weird expression. Then, a small, incredulous huff escaped her lips. "Is it really that pretty?"

Yuki asked as she gave back Ishiki’s tattered robe.

"I mean... It is the most beautiful face I have ever seen." he mumbled, staring at a very interesting crack in the wall.

’Ahhh... stop saying weird things. Shut up. Shut up.’

He coughed, forcing the subject to lurch sideways before it crushed him. "Also, thanks for the healing. Assuming that was you."

None of them spoke anything for a long moment. Yuki looked down at her hands, flexing her fingers and Ishiki tried to act nonchalant, but every second of her silence made his heart beat louder.

The space between them felt, too intimate. He could feel the faint chill radiating from her skin and hear each soft breath.

"Yes, I did heal you," she said abruptly. "But no need to thank me, I only did this because you are helpful... it was a strategic investment."

Ishiki snorted. "Right. Strategic investment." He paused and then added in a soft tone. "Anyways... my ribs appreciate it."

She didn’t smile at his words, instead, her shoulders slumped. "I failed them, Ishiki. All of them. The players who believed in me and followed me... none of them is alive now. I was supposed to be strong and save them."

He didn’t answer at once.

Part of him wanted to tell her it was stupid. That no one sane would take responsibility for surviving a god. And even if he wanted, there was nothing to confront about, why does she even think she was responsible for their lives?

After a while, he finally spoke. "Hey... Yuki." his voice losing its playful edge. "Stop saying that. Its not like you could have done anything."

"Stop what? Telling the truth?" She looked at him, Ishiki could see the guilt shimmering in her eyes. "I failed them... the six of them were with me from the day we came here. I promised them that i will make them reach... safety."

"Well you did keep your promise, you made them reach that settlement." Ishiki countered firmly. "And as for what happened. We couldn’t have known? It’s the Lord of Illusions and Deceit. It’s in the name, Yuki. He deceives."

"But still... I could have-"

"You could have what? Punched a god?" Ishiki shook his head. "We survived and that’s the only victory we get here. Guilt is just dead weight."

Yuki fell silent, staring at the cave floor. She pulled her knees to her chest, robe and white cloth pooling around her legs. Outside the trees were singing their beautiful melody, the forest was turned into dark... illuminated by the scarce red light of the moon.

He looked at her from the corner of his eye, with a sad look. And for the first time, he didn’t see the powerful princess with her indifferent expression. He saw a sixteen-year-old girl who was just as terrified as he was.

"Did you... have a nightmare?" he asked quietly.

Yuki shook her head quietly and then asked back. "Did you?"

Ishiki grimaced remembering what he saw. "Yeah... an illusion actually. Where I had a daughter and a wife, and a perfect life. But then everything ended as i saw them die and then died myself."

Yuki’s head snapped up. Her pink eyes widened in shock. "You... you saw that?"

Ishiki nodded. "Pretty sure, all of those who are no more saw one... well, I am lucky... I guess." His mouth twisted into something that wasn’t quite a smile.

"That bastard finds what you want most and twists it. To break your will to live." He looked at her. "You really didn’t see anything?"

"No," she said softly. "Maybe, because I don’t have anything that I want in particular."

The tension in the cave eased, not because things were better, but because the worst had already been said aloud.

Ishiki shifted, searching for a position that didn’t turn his legs into numb logs. The stone floor was unforgiving. His shoulder brushed Yuki’s arm lightly; the contact sent a small, unwelcome jolt through him.

He flinched and then sat carefully.

"So," he started, grasping for a different topic before his brain could spiral. "You’re from up there, right? The floating islands." he chuckled.

"Well... we called it floating heaven below and bet what kind of nonsense things are there."

Yuki nodded slowly.

"Uh... what was it like?" Ishiki asked, with curiosity. "Could you see the real sun all the time? Did you have fresh air? And flying cars?"

Yuki looked at him blankly. "I don’t know."

Ishiki blinked. "Huh? What do you mean, you don’t know? You lived there."

She looked around for a second and then answered in a nonchalant voice. "It was... clean and orderly."

"That’s it?" Ishiki asked, half-laughing, half-incredulous.

She drew invisible lines on the stone with her finger.

"I lived inside a single building," she explained. "A single apartment in a high tower. Everything I needed was delivered to me. The training halls were three floors down. The meditation chambers were one floor up. The hospital was in the same block."

She shook a little and continued in a gloomy voice.

"I was not allowed to leave without an escort," she whispered. "And most of the time, even that was denied. They said I had no need to see the outside."

Ishiki exhaled slowly. "That sounds like a perfect life," he said, but there was no admiration in his voice. Only a tired kind of pity.

Yuki looked at him with a frown. "How is that a perfect life?"

"They chose when I slept, when I meditated, when I ate and took a bath." Her voice turned flat, reciting. "Wake up. Drink supplement. Stretch. Bath. Lessons. Assessments. Quiet time. Repeat."

She closed her eyes for a moment and muttered. "It was just... a polished cage."

Ishiki felt bad... kind of. Guilty at that. He gulped slowly and then whispered. "I... am sorry."

He exhaled slowly. "So you didn’t had any friends? To whom you could run away when things got... too much?"

"There were cameras," she said simply. "And people watching them all the time."

For a moment, the only sound was the soft rasp of fabric as she shifted. She hesitated, then spoke again, this time a little quieter.

"My father was obsessed with perfection," she said. "That’s how he built the Koyo Clan into one of the richest in the world. Everything for him was numbers and probabilities. He thought people were equations that could be solved."

She gave a humorless smile. "So he tried to solve his children."

Ishiki said nothing, actually... he couldn’t. He didn’t understand most of it and understood what it meant at the same time.

He saw as Yuki’s mouth slightly twisted. "My brother and I were his most expensive projects. We are genetically altered... so yeah, better than normal humans."

"For what? To make you perfect?" Ishiki frowned.

"To make us useful," she corrected. "Perfect would have come later."

"So they trained you in... what? Fighting?" he asked, subtly.

"Politics... negotiations, laws, economics. My brother was the best at everything, he didn’t had any flaw. He could remember every name in a room and what they wanted before they said a word."

There was no jealousy in her tone. Just some sort of pride... maybe even envy.

"He was already a big deal, then?" Ishiki asked.

"Yes," she answered in a neutral tone. "By eighteen, he was on panels, giving speeches, sitting in on policy meetings. I watched him on screens more than in person."

She paused.

"I was just a bargaining chip. Sooner or later I would have married into another clan to merge assets or stabilize some alliance." Her eyes dropped to her hands again.

"That’s..." He searched for a word that wasn’t just swearing. "Gross."

It indeed was... Ishiki almost laughed at what he had learned. The heaven... or what he thought to be heaven was just another cage.

He gritted his teeth unknowingly. He remembered what Filch once said to him about being free and now... he was feeling that he might have been right.

Was there really no freedom for humans?