Interrogation

The light of dawn was quickly filtering through the faded curtains, bathing the room in warm shades of orange and gold. In the center of that modest chamber, a boy with black hair and eyes lay upon an unmade bed. Locks of hair fell in disarray over his face, framing his eyes that glittered with reflections of the dawn.

It was a day of threshold, a point of inflection etched into the timelines stretching out before him. "Tomorrow," he thought, "I will be free. Free to grope the broad contours of the world, to weave friendships, to perhaps..." His mind paused at the edge of a cliff of daydreams, but with swift resolution, he shook his head, dispelling the cloud of uncertainties with a couple of gentle slaps on his own cheeks.

With a smile that danced on his lips, edged by a shadow of melancholy, he traced the silhouette of what he yearned to be - a being capable of touching happiness, even if fleetingly. In the eyes of any passerby, he could be described as someone whose palette of existence was tinted only in the coldest of hues - skin white as the most pristine snow, hair as dark as the depths of an unfathomable abyss.

And then, like a curtain abruptly pulled from a window in a gust of wind, the scene morphed.

---

Now, the boy - no longer a boy, but a man whose history had already been stained by the ink of knowledge and time - sat in a sterilized room. Only a metal table and two chairs, a setting worthy of a game of masters and pawns.

Thomas fixed his gaze on Elizabeth, who resumed the same weight of determination that had marked her in the arena. She was a sculpture of resilience, polished by tradition and expectations, but subject to the fissures of doubt.

Thomas's thoughts receded like the waves at low tide, revealing the smooth stones of submerged memory. "I thought I had left behind such a naïve dream..." he reflected, echoing within his own spirit. "Good things... were never invited to rest in my experience, I always repelled others, even myself... But, was it not I who planted the first steps on this track I now tread?"

His inner voice unraveled the tapestry of his past, pulling threads he had long avoided. There were choices there, some made, others imposed upon him, and all of them wove a narrative in which the idea of happiness seemed more like a fleeting specter than a reality.

"You chose this path," Elizabeth broke the silence with the precision of one who handles a sword, not to wound, but to point out a truth. "But choices can be redirected. What was may not be what will always be."

Their eyes met - a silent link in a noisy universe. Thomas absorbed the weight of her words, weighing their legitimacy. She, in turn, watched the man before her, recognizing in him an echo of a question we all ask: "What is my place in this world?"

Elizabeth faced Thomas with an evident curiosity in her blue eyes, which seemed to reflect some unruly light of the cold room they were in. Her blonde hair bound her face with a type of grace that might seem out of place in such an austere environment.

"These tattoos," she began, her voice a near-reverent whisper as she leaned slightly forward, "what do they mean?" Her question was less an interrogation and more a bridge thrown across the gap between them.

Thomas raised his arms, the clear chains and the anti-mana device glinting under artificial light, forming a grotesque contrast with the softness of his skin. "I can't tell you exactly," he admitted, his voice tone revealing genuine confusion, "they were born with me, or something like that." His words were measured, as if each syllable was a leaf detached from a particularly introspective autumn.

Elizabeth watched, not just with her eyes, but with her entire being. She studied the enigmatic lines that streaked Thomas's skin like rivers of ink, seeking possible meanings where there might be none. Her gaze then slid to his hands, pale notes studded with dark nails that starkly contrasted, before settling on his face.

A beautiful face, mapped by the night with hair as black as a starless firmament, and eyes that seemed to absorb every light and secret within reach. The combination was unsettling, leaving Elizabeth with the feeling that she was seeing something or someone who, although before her, belonged to an entirely separate place.

For a moment, the room seemed to narrow, the air heavy with unspoken words and unexpressed thoughts. Thomas and Elizabeth were alone, not just physically, but in a sense that transcended the walls of the interrogation chamber.

"What's your name?" she asked, a simple question so fundamental it almost touched the soul.

Thomas looked at her, the simplicity of the question almost disarming. "My name is Thomas," he replied, his voice as straightforward as the answer.

Awaiting the next step in the delicate ballet of questions and answers, he did not have to wait long. "Why were you in the dungeon?" she pressed, her blue eyes searching for something beyond the obvious.

Thomas closed his eyes for a moment, a profound pause, as if diving into waters of memory and time. He remembered... Before his world had turned into a portal to this unknown place, there had been glimpses - fragments of a calamity, the noises of war, the echo of chaos that followed him like the shadow of a predator. World War II was not just a stain in history, but the prelude to his own odyssey.

"I entered a portal," he began, his mind refocusing on the present. "It was 1945, and the world was in ruins – I was in ruins. When I awoke, I was here, and ever since, I have been trying to understand not just how, but why."

Elizabeth drew back slightly, the weight of history and possibility bending the air between them. Her inquiries were no longer just procedural; they had taken on a personal dimension. With every word Thomas spoke, the reality of his situation grew in complexity and mysticism. It was more than she had expected, perhaps more than she was prepared to encounter.

She recalled fragments of stories she had heard - myths and rumors at the corners of knowledge where the real and the fantastic met and merged. Portals, time travel, alternate worlds... And now she sat at the same table as a man who seemed to be the living embodiment of those tales.

Elizabeth watched Thomas with an expression that blended professional interest with personal caution. The empty walls of the interrogation room had witnessed many stories – some true, others careful fabrications. She pondered Thomas's words for a moment, trying to decipher the underlying truth.

"Are you suggesting that you came from the period of World War II? From the time of the first portals?" she questioned, skepticism in her voice as sharp as the blades of the hunters.

Thomas maintained an impassive expression, the facade necessary to mask his true origins and intentions hanging between them like a dense fog. "Yes," he responded deliberately, maintaining his gaze on Elizabeth, "I saw the world change during that time."

Elizabeth's heart pounded – the history of the portals, monsters emerging from their dark innards, the heroic rise of the hunters... Thomas was claiming to be a part of that history, but something about the way he shrouded his gaze with calculated calm told her there was more behind his statement.

This was, after all, a world where lies were told as much for survival as for deceit. "And why were you in the dungeon when we found you?" she pressed, her instinct telling her that each answer provided another glimpse behind the curtain Thomas had raised before his true narrative.

Thomas leaned slightly forward, his mana chains rasping with the movement. "There are things that need to be kept hidden," he said enigmatically. "Certain truths... can be too dangerous to reveal."

Elizabeth stood still, processing Thomas's words. Lies had a distinct flavor, and the nuances of truth could be even more elusive. "You speak like a hunter," she asserted, "but your words are evasive. What are you hiding, Thomas?"

Thomas had not expected less from Elizabeth, a woman whose profession was to find cracks in the tales told. He knew at that moment that he had to continue building his false narrative carefully, aware that any misstep could trigger a response he was not prepared to face.

---

Thomas kept his eyes fixed on Elizabeth, his mouth opening to formulate a response when the door of the interrogation room burst open abruptly. A man in a flawless suit, wearing an expression that mixed urgency with a certain disarray, entered swiftly.

"John's in England, and from our information, he's headed this way," he reported, his eyes moving quickly between Thomas and Elizabeth, seemingly weighing the impact of that news.

Elizabeth remained unflappable, a sea of calm before the storm of information. She stood up, her stance commanding and her incisive voice cutting through the tense air. "We'll continue this interrogation later..." she stated assertively, each word coated with the authority of someone accustomed to facing chaos.

Heading to the door, she walked past the man in the suit without hesitation. As she was about to cross the threshold, Thomas's voice, tinged with curiosity, momentarily stopped her: "Who is John?"

Without turning to face him, she replied, casting the words over her shoulder. "Another S-rank hunter like myself... But it seems he doesn't know how to follow laws. Anyway, we will return to this interrogation."

With that, she and the man in the suit disappeared down the corridor, leaving Thomas alone in the now silent room. He leaned back in the chair, a contemplative expression giving way to a smile wrapped in enigma.

"John, John, John," Thomas murmured, almost in a whisper, as if the name evoked a distant recognition or perhaps a piece of a long-disassembled puzzle. "I can feel your strength and bloodlust coming my way... Interesting."

The sound of the door closing echoed like the closing of a book, and Thomas let out a soft laugh...

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Author's notes:

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