Chapter 20: The Broken Mirror

Mutilate, mutilate; for the ancient evil doth call.

Offer it up unto thy god, a sacrifice drenched in blood.

Hang the witch, hang the witch; behold, the witch standeth beside thee.

Impale them, yea, rend open their bellies, in the name of the Holy Father.

– TEPES "Malleus Maleficarum"

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A freezing chill that pierces to the bone drifts through the air.

Bare, crumbling, dilapidated poured-concrete walls.

A dim, filthy, windowless sight I was once so used to seeing.

This place is... a prison.

The cage of despair and resignation where I myself was once imprisoned.

Crunching through the thick layer of dust, I walk up to the rusted iron bars before me.

I remember this cell.

The place of beginnings and endings, where I was captured by some Port long ago and became a God Eater, an AGE.

However, a heavy, pitch-black darkness hangs over the other side of the bars, completely obscuring the view.

Suddenly, a massive claw violently thrusts out from the darkness beyond the bars and slams against the iron grating.

"...Come closer... Damn this cage... If only it weren't here, I could have torn you apart and devoured you..."

Emitting a voice that seemed to echo from the depths of the earth, an eerie dragon slowly peeks its head out from the swirling, pitch-black darkness deep within the cell, its eyes burning like purplish-crimson bonfires.

Clink, clank. The dark-blue, giant demonic dragon was bound entirely, tied down by multiple thick chains restraining its body.

I know it.

I know this thing.

This monster is an Ash Forged Aragami, a Tyrant Hannibal.

"...A monster, huh... You speak as if this has nothing to do with you... Even though I am the 'form' you desired... Have you never looked in a mirror...?"

Prompted by the exasperated words of the chained Aragami, I suddenly glance at my own hands.

Slender, brown arms. Thin, just like a girl's.

A girl?

The next thing that catches my eye is my own large, swelling chest.

What is this?

Why do I have these...?

I look all over my body. A cinched waist. Plump, round hips. Slender legs.

Was I a woman? No, I was supposed to be a man...

"Did you forget about that, too? Even though it was a masterpiece avatar you spent so much time making."

Before I knew it, the dragon-type Aragami was gone from the other side of the bars, and the shadows had converged, taking shape and changing form.

It became a chained girl, looking at me with a cynical gaze.

A grotesque girl covered in pale-black crystalline scales, with horns growing from her head, sharp beast-like claws on both hands, and a long tail extending from her waist.

I know her.

I know this girl.

Her form, her voice, I know them well.

Because she is me.

"That's right. I am you. I've been with you ever since you were born. When you slept, when you ate, when you hunted prey, I was right there with you."

The girl with a human head and a dragon's tail clinks her chained arms and smirks.

An appearance as if an Aragami had taken human form, yet terrifyingly and beautifully capturing the fleeting loveliness of a girl and the bewitching charm of a woman.

Is it human, or is it an Aragami?

"Hey, hey, you're pretty slow on the uptake, aren't you? Do you still think you're human? Take a gooooood look at yourself."

The grotesque girl juts her chin out, urging me on.

I looked at my hands again.

Fingertips with claws as sharp as razors.

When I touch my head, I feel the twisted, pointed tips of horns.

Blue-black gleaming scales cover my body, and a long, segmented tail grows from my rear, swaying back and forth of its own volition.

The exact same appearance as the chained girl across the bars in front of me.

Is this... an Aragami?

Was I an Aragami? No, I'm human. A God Eater, an AGE. I'm definitely not an Aragami... Wait, God Eater? That was supposed to be a story in a game.

Right, I was playing a game.

A game where you hunt monsters called Aragami and save a post-apocalyptic world.

There, I created the protagonist's avatar, and—

"When you came to, oh, how strange. For some reason, you had slipped into the game's world. And starting completely over from a baby, at that."

The grotesque girl speaks as if speaking for me.

Right. There, I was raised by God Eater parents.

I was going to become a God Arc User like my parents, defeat the Aragami, and—

"But, surprise! Even though it's inside a game, it's excessively brutal. Scraping by just to eat every day is way too hard for a modern person. Is it a warzone? Well, in a way, it is a war against the Aragami. Then, one day, both your old man and your mom were eaten by Aragami and died. We thought, 'Ah, it's over, game over,' but then..."

Yes, I was saved. By God Eaters, by AGEs.

And I was taken to some Port, gained the compatibility qualification for a God Arc, and became a God Eater, an AGE.

"It was an unfolding of events just like in a game. You even got to be an AGE. You thought, 'Now I can be super strong as the protagonist, play a super active role, go super unmatched, and be like, I'm so overpowered! I can do this!' But, however..."

What awaited me was hell.

Restrained and stripped of my freedom, I was forced into combat with Aragami.

All the materials I gathered were taken away, and I was barely given any medicine to heal my wounds or food to eat.

And I was a woman.

So, the male guards...

"Ahhh, that was rough, wasn't it? Every single day, without ever getting bored. Because every time you came back from butchering Aragami, it was immediate rape. Thrusting into you with zero hesitation, emptying their filthy juices deep inside your belly, every last one of them. You didn't even have time to sleep. It was only thanks to the Bias Factor that you didn't get pregnant."

Beating, kicking, and pinning down my still-young body, forcefully pushing down my resisting form over and over again... The other women brought there suffered the exact same fate.

The worst part was that the other male AGEs were often forced to participate. Whether as entertainment, at the whim of the guards, or as a supposed reward.

My male comrades, apologizing to me even as they desperately thrust their hips and unleashed their seething desires.

As the months and days passed, I considered giving up countless times. After a female comrade, unable to endure the daily violations, went mad and committed suicide by launching a suicide attack on an Aragami, I became even more of an outlet for the men's bestial lust.

But I endured. I endured with desperate resolve. I trained my body thoroughly. I even played up to the men, acting subserviently to secure better treatment.

The guards grew obsessed with my body as it matured into something more refined, beautiful, and resilient, and I was favored by the male AGEs as well.

An opportunity would definitely come.

I thought. I wasn't at the Pennywort Port, and I wasn't the protagonist. But I knew the story.

I simply waited for the time to come.

"Yeah, you waited. Actively cozying up to the males, straddling them, moving your hips, acting like you enjoyed it—reluctantly, for a long time. It was incredibly disgusting. And then, finally..."

It came.

The time.

An Ash Storm.

A rampaging, destructive Bias Field that swallows everything and turns it to ash.

The people of the Port screaming in panic at a phenomenon against which there was virtually no way to resist.

Right in the middle of the act, I strangled the pig of a Chief Guard who was on top of me on the bed, and stole his weapon and the keys to my restraints.

And as the Ash Storm approached, I slaughtered the guards, who were thrown into chaos by the critical situation, one by one.

"Yup, yup. That was the first time I felt refreshed in a long while. Because we brutally murdered every single one of those bastards, letting none escape. They were desperately crawling on the ground, even begging for their lives; even thinking about it now... chuckle, it was hilarious."

I secured my trusty God Arc, but with no time to spare, I could only take the bare minimum of supplies before escaping the Port to flee the Ash Storm.

Having escaped into the Ashlands, I survived by hunting Aragami, but I was inevitably forced into combat with an Ashborn, getting wounded and ending up on the brink of death.

"That annoying bastard, persistently coming after us. And it was a pain-in-the-ass type that could create clones, too."

As my consciousness faded, I wanted to become strong.

I wanted to be stronger than anything else. Humans are weak and fragile. In that case, a creature far more robust than a human would be better.

Clutching my broken God Arc, I wished—

"—That's right. To be an absolute, transcendent ruler who loses to no one and yields to nothing. To be the ultimate predator, vastly superior to both humans and beasts—"

The eyes of the chained girl in the cell blink, harboring a bewitching glow.

Wavering darkness.

Creeping and overflowing from between the rusted iron bars.

I heard a voice.

         The lamentation.

The pain.          

           The anger.

The sorrow.

The suffering.

  The mercy weaving the dawn of countless years.

The resentment spelling out the profound twilight.

It calls.

It sings.

It is a scream. The will of the mother planet.

Destroy the pests known as "humans" that infest the fruitful orb called Earth.

—DEVOUR EVERYTHING—

I—

"We—"

Became an Aragami—