Ats staggered back, his breathing wild. His older self— the one trapped in this nightmare—was watching it all unfold, shaking, his hands clutching his ears.

  "Nein! Genug! H?r auf! H?r auf!" (No! Enough! Stop! Stop!) he screamed, shaking his head violently.

  But the memory didn't stop.

  The dying breaths of the woman echoed in his ears. The girl's cries of terror rang endlessly, looping over and over and over and over and over and over again. The fire burned without end, consuming everything—

  And Masked Ats just stood there, grinning.

  "Ohhh, there it is! That's the reaction I was waiting for!" he cpped his hands, delighted.

  "Look at you! The great Ats, broken and screaming like a child! Just like back then. Just like always."

  Ats squeezed his eyes shut, his body trembling violently.

  "Make it stop.." he whimpered like a child.

  Masked Ats leaned in, his grin pressing dangerously close. "Why should I? This is who you are. You think you buried it, locked it away, erased it like it never happened? Guess what? I kept it all for you."

  He grinned wider. "And I'm going to make sure you feel every. Last. Second."

  Ats let out a raw, pained scream.

  The fmes around him roared higher, devouring everything. He was no longer standing as his older self—he was back in his fifteen-year-old body, curled over the lifeless form of the woman who had saved him, his second mother.

  His arms wrapped around her tightly, refusing to let go. The warmth was already leaving her body but the blood remained—thick, sticky, seeping into his clothes. He didn't care. He couldn't care. She was slipping away.

  "Bitte... Bitte komm zurück!" (Please... Please come back!) he sobbed, rocking back and forth, his trembling fingers clinging to the fabric of her dress. "Nicht noch einmal... bitte nicht noch einmal...!" (Not again... please, not again...!)

  The girl—his sister in all but blood—was gone, dragged away screaming just like before. And now, his second mother, the only warmth he had left in this world, was silent.

  The house groaned as it began to colpse around him. Burning beams crashed down. Sparks flew. Cinders choked the air. The fire raged, but Ats didn't move.

  He held onto her like a drowning man clinging to a sinking ship, as if sheer desperation could bring her back.

  "Ohhh, would you look at that?" Masked Ats whistled, standing off to the side, arms crossed. "Clinging to a corpse like a lost puppy. How pathetic."

  Ats shook his head violently, his fingers tightening around her. "Halt die Fresse! Halt die Fresse! Halt die Fresse!" (Shut up! Shut up Shut up!)

  Masked Ats leaned in, voice dripping with exaggerated pity. "Didn't learn the first time, did you? You get attached, you lose them. Over, and over, and over again. And here you are, sobbing like it was ever going to end differently."

  Ats's body shivered. His screams were raw, grief strangling the breath from his lungs. His throat burned from the smoke, his chest heaving with the weight of loss, of helplessness, of rage. It was too much.

  And then—

  A hand grabbed the back of his colr.

  He barely had time to react before he was yanked backward, dragged away from the inferno. The woman's body slipped from his grasp, vanishing into the fire as he thrashed weakly against the iron grip of whoever had taken hold of him.

  "Nein!" (No) Ats fought, kicked, screamed. "LASS MICH!" (LET ME GO!)

  "Stop struggling, boy" a deep, steady voice commanded. Firm. Absolute.

  "If you stay, you die."

  Ats turned, his tear-streaked face looking up at the man who had pulled him from the fire. He was tall, imposing, in his early 40s and dressed in a long dark coat. His features were sharp, his expression unreadable. But what stood out the most—

  His eyes. Cold, calcuting. The kind of eyes that had seen too much, yet revealed nothing.

  "You have a choice" the man said, dragging Ats away even as the younger boy tried to cw his way back. "Die here, or learn how to survive."

  The fmes roared louder. The world around him crumbled.

  And for the second time in his life—

  Ats was alone.

  A slow, mocking cp echoed through the ruins of his mind.

  "Now this—this is priceless!" Masked Ats doubled over in ughter.

  "You don't remember their faces, the ones who loved you, who cared for you, but him?

  He gestured dramatically. "Ohhh, you remember him in perfect, fwless detail. What does that say about you?"

  Ats didn't move. His breath was ragged, his body shaking as the fmes behind him burned away the st remnants of the only home he had ever known.

  Masked Ats stepped forward, and the scenery shifted again.

  Now, they stood in a dimly lit room, the air thick with the scent of ink and aged parchment. A grand mahogany desk sat at the center, stacks of books meticulously arranged on its surface. The walls were lined with shelves, filled with knowledge, strategy, power.

  Behind the desk sat him.

  The man who saved Ats that night.

  The flickering candlelight cast deep shadows over his chiseled features, his sharp cheekbones and piercing blue eyes reflecting nothing but calcution. His jet-bck hair was combed back, not a strand out of pce, and the crisp tailoring of his dark coat hinted at discipline, power, and absolute control.

  "Go on, say it" Masked Ats whispered, nudging him.

  "Say his name. You remember it."

  Ats swallowed hard, his voice hoarse. "Gregor Faust."

  Masked Ats smirked. "That's right. The man who picked up a shattered, pathetic orphan and turned him into something... useful.

  He leaned in, his voice low, taunting. "He didn't coddle you. Didn't comfort you. Didn't treat you like some lost child—"

  "He trained you, molded you and you ate it all up, didn't you?"

  Masked Ats grinned, his voice ced with something almost like admiration.

  "Because it was better than being weak."

  Ats's younger self sat at the desk across from Gregor, his small hands folded neatly as he listened intently.

  "People are predictable, boy." Gregor said, tapping a gloved finger against the polished wood of the desk.

  "They think they are rational, but they act on impulse, emotion, desire. Learn to see it. Read their fears, their ambitions, and you will own them before they even realize it."

  Ats nodded, his face far too serious for a child his age. "And if they resist?"

  Gregor smirked. "Then you make them think it was their idea all along."

  He leaned forward slightly, his piercing blue eyes gleaming with something almost amused. "Influence is an art, Ats. Not brute force. Not fear. Control."

  The memory pyed on. Scene after scene. Lessons upon lessons.

  Gregor teaching him how to read the smallest of gestures—how a slight twitch of the lips could betray a lie, how a clenched fist could reveal suppressed anger. How words, when wielded correctly, could be sharper than any bde.

  Ats absorbed it all. Every lesson. Every manipution. Every tactic.

  "And you wonder why you ended up the way you did" Masked Ats mused, gesturing to the scene before them.

  "The man who loved you? Forgotten. The girl who called you family? Lost in a haze. But this bastard? Oh, you remember every single thing he taught you, don't you?"

  The memory twisted. The boy at the desk became older. Ats was no longer a child. He was 18 now.

  He sat across from Gregor, the same desk between them—but this time, it was different.

  Gregor. His mentor's piercing blue eyes locked onto him, cold and calcuting. "You're finally ready, Ats."

  Ats's heart pounded. "For what?"

  "I know where your siblings are" Gregor said smoothly, tapping his fingers against the desk.

  "I've always known."

  Something cold slithered down Ats's spine.

  Ats felt his world tilt. "You… knew?" His voice cracked.

  Gregor smirked. "Did you really think I wouldn't? I trained you, molded you—I taught you everything."

  Ats's hands clenched. The weight of years of training, of learning to manipute, to deceive, to survive, all culminated in that moment.

  "Where are they?" He forced his voice to stay steady.

  Gregor's smirk widened. "Find them yourself."

  Ats stilled.

  Gregor tilted his head, feigning curiosity. "If you're truly as capable as I made you, you'll figure it out."

  And so, Ats did. It took months of pnning, deceit, and calcuted murder.

  Gregor died by his hand. It was a perfect accident. The perfect murder.

  But by the time Ats found his siblings… they were dead.

  Eighteen years old. Alone. Devoid of purpose.

  "And that." Masked Ats whispered, his voice dripping with mockery, pointing at the cheek of his dead siblings.

  "That was the moment you truly broke. You killed the only other father figure you had, thinking it would set you free."

  Masked Ats let out a breathy ugh. "But in the end, you lost everything anyway."

  Ats stood, silent. Numb.

  "Say it" Masked Ats taunted. "Say you regret it. Say you wish you had never learned his lessons. Say you want to forget him."

  Ats couldn't. The past was who he was. And that was the true curse.

  Masked Ats's grin twitched.

  Then—

  A fist smmed into Ats's face with bone-crushing force.

  He staggered, pain exploding through his jaw as he barely caught himself before colpsing. Blood dripped from his split lip. He wiped it away with the back of his hand, gring up—

  Only to see something different.

  To see Masked Ats's expression shift.

  The usual taunting smirk was gone, repced by something darker. Frustration. Rage. His hands trembled at his sides, his breath coming fast, his fingers twitching—like he wanted to hit him again.

  "Why…" Masked Ats's voice was low, almost guttural. "Why won't you just break already?!"

  Ats panted, his ears ringing. "Because you don't get to win."

  The world lurched violently.

  Ats barely had a second to react before the scene around him changed again.

  He was older now—twenty.

  He sat alone in a dimly lit room, his back hunched, his arms resting limply against the desk. An empty bottle of something strong rolled across the wooden floor. The air was thick with the stench of alcohol and exhaustion. Papers were strewn across the desk—documents, ledgers, business pns, contracts.

  But he wasn't looking at them.

  He was staring at a knife.

  His fingers traced the handle absently, his expression void of emotion.

  The bde was clean. Sharp. Unused. Because he had tried.

  So many times. And every time, he had stopped. Just as he was about slit it, he stopped. Every single time.

  Coward.

  He had grown his business, built an empire from nothing, climbed from the depths of despair with only his mind, turned pain into strategy, survival into power—

  And yet. None of it mattered.

  Not really..

  "Ahhh, this part's my favourite!" Masked Ats's voice echoed in mock delight as he sauntered around the memory.

  "Ats Fucking Faust, the brilliant, maniputive genius—reduced to a miserable wreck, failing at the one thing he actually wanted to do."

  Ats flinched.

  "So." Masked Ats continued, voice brimming with fake sympathy

  "You did what you do best, didn't you? You distracted yourself. You turned your pain into numbers, investments, strategies.

  His voice dropped into a whisper, curling around Ats like smoke.

  "You became so consumed with building an empire… that you forgot how to feel."

  Ats's hands clenched into fists. The memory twisted again.

  This time, he wasn't alone.