A girl with long purple hair is locked inside a dark cell. She's sitting on the cold concrete floor with her legs crossed and her chin resting on her hands while observing the steel door.
She has on her face what can only be described as a completely bored expression.
Rize Kamishiro. That's the name of the purple-haired girl.
She's approximately twelve years old according to her own calculations. Although in that horrible windowless place, where she doesn't know when it's day or when it's night, it's extremely difficult to know the exact time, so she can hardly be sure of anything related to the passage of time.
She'd been caged here since she was a small child, and was fed human flesh of varying quality depending on the mood of the owners of this place. Sometimes the meat was delicious and tender, and other times it tasted horribly bad. Sometimes there were weeks when she didn't even eat. She was also brutally trained every day to the point where she often thinks she's a living weapon being forged.
According to them, she's valuable material that must be perfected.
Anyway, it's not that it bothers her too much. She's used to it more than anything.
If she's honest with herself, there's one thing that really bothers her deeply, and it's the constant boredom.
"Ugh... how boring..."
She sighs while stretching her arm above her head and relaxing her legs forward. She looks like a cat seeking a comfortable position after lying in the same spot for too long without moving.
It's at that precise moment, the air in front of her suddenly bulges and explodes with a pop. From there a crimson flash breaks through.
The thing that emerges slowly approaches floating toward her.
Faced with this strange scene, Rize isn't frightened or shows an expression of surprise, which suggests this isn't the first time something like this has happened.
Her lips curve into a smile that can't be fake, and it's actually the first expression of real happiness on her face all day.
"Ah! Yuki-chan! You've finally come back!"
What's floating before her isn't something one would call pleasant to look at, but something a bit disturbing and strange. It's the size of an adult's fist, with a round and perfectly spherical shape, and mostly white being similar to a sclera, and in the center there's a bright crimson iris staring fixedly at Rize.
The eye blinks slowly at Rize's greeting, something she had learned to interpret as a way this mysterious eye shows affection toward her.
Yuki. In fact, that's the name she had given it a week ago, when this eye first appeared in her cell.
At first Rize thought it was a hallucination caused by her loneliness, which wouldn't be strange considering she spends her days completely alone in a cold cell. At one point or another, even if she's a girl who constantly has twisted and dark thoughts, she would wish to have some kind of company.
However, the eye turned out not only to not be a product of her hallucination by proving to her it's real, but it also moves all day around her to faithfully accompany her, only disappearing a few times a day before returning to her side.
It had also helped her several times, but she doesn't know this yet.
Rize extends her hand with her palm facing up and the eye happily floated toward her. As it moves through the air, the eye reduced its size from the size of an adult's fist to the size of a small marble.
It descends gently until resting on her open palm. It reminds Rize of a bird returning to its nest after a long day of flying.
"Did you go explore outside again? Tell me, tell me! Did you see anything interesting today?"
The eye's eyelids close to blink once, which is a bit visually strange, but she assumes that means a "yes."
"Hehe, how envious. I also want to leave this horrible cage someday."
She gently places her index finger on the eye and strokes it like one strokes the head of a purring cat.
"Don't you think so too, Yuki-chan? This is such a small and suffocating cage. It's like being a caged bird. I wonder if I leave here, will I be free, or will I find a slightly bigger cage..."
This floating eye is probably the only real company she's had since she was born, with the sole predetermined role of being a "valuable product" for her family.
She says with contempt in her voice.
"Yuki-chan is much better company than those idiots outside."
Rize has been wondering if this little eye might actually have a brain somewhere, because sometimes it seems to understand her perfectly. Like now, when the eye rises from her hand and does a little flip in the air.
Rize emits sounds of happy laughter at that, but then she hears footsteps approaching through the outer hallway.
Her smile instantly twists into a dark and dangerous smile, and her eyes shine threateningly.
"Oh, it seems the guard dogs are coming to bother me again."
She stood up lazily while the eye floats until positioning itself above her right shoulder, which is different from previous times when it would hide. This made Rize panic.
"Yuki-chan! Go hide behind me right now! If the guard dogs discover you, they'll separate you from me!"
The eye instead remains stubbornly above her shoulder without moving a millimeter.
The eye seems to say.
"Watch me ignore you."
Rize: "..."
Rize can't believe it.
She tries to grab it desperately with her hands, but the eye easily passes through the gaps between her fingers and settles triumphantly on her head.
Rize starts sweating nervously and biting her lower lip with anxiety. This is bad, really bad. She doesn't want to lose her only pet and company in this hell.
"Valuable objects" like her shouldn't have anyone close. They shouldn't interact with anyone, shouldn't have friends, shouldn't have emotions toward anyone. Because that supposedly would reduce her value as a weapon.
That's why, when the guards see her with a pet, they'll take it away without hesitation and she'll be severely punished.
But she doesn't have much time to think of solutions.
She doesn't manage to hide the eye in time. The steel door opens with a horrible screech that's extremely unpleasant.
While she's in panic, two guards enter the cell.
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