Prison of the Heart
-Black energy, what is this!
-In the imperial family blessed by golden fortune, this is something that should never happen!
-You filthy wretch! To think I gave birth to a thing like you!
-What will everyone think of me now!
-If word gets out that a bearer of the imperial bloodline has awakened an ominous power of [Darkness], the legitimacy of the imperial family will be shaken.
-Seal her away in the deepest chamber that no one can see. Make sure she never lays eyes on the outside world again!
Screeech... Thud!
A girl born of the noblest blood was rejected by her own parents. The power she awakened at such a young age was utterly incompatible with the laws of the radiant golden imperial family.
She was confined to a deep, deep underground prison, and the entrance to her cell was sealed shut.
"Dada? Mama?"
Abandoned without understanding why, the girl desperately called out for her parents and siblings in the pitch-black darkness where she couldn't see an inch ahead.
"It's so dark here... sniff."
But no matter how much she cried out, no answer came. All she could do was whimper alone in her sealed prison.
The secret prison of the imperial family held no food, no water, no one to help her.
Gurgle...
"...I'm hungry."
It wouldn't have been strange if the girl had starved to death, but she didn't die. Sustained by the relic from the mythic age that was the sealed prison itself, her life was maintained in a minimal state amid utter solitude.
In this prison with no books to read, no dolls to play with, the only thing the girl had was the power she had awakened: [Darkness].
She fiddled with the power of [Darkness], playing with it.
"Fwends! Make fwends!"
It wasn't easy from the start. No teacher existed to show her how to wield it, nor were there any reference materials or tools to observe and learn from.
She went through countless trials and errors.
"Hing. Bwoke again."
The doll she painstakingly made couldn't hold its shape and crumbled. She made it sturdy to prevent collapse, but then it couldn't stand up. She made it light enough to move, but the body snapped.
With each failure, she grew gradually more adept at handling the power of [Darkness].
Before long, she reached the point where she could create dolls in the form she desired and make them move.
The girl played dolls with the black puppets she brought to life.
"I'm the super cool hewo! You're my dwagon-slaying buddy!"
Imagining herself inside the fairy tales her nanny had read to her before her imprisonment.
"Powew of justice!"
In this closed world with no one to talk to.
"You'we [Darkness Knights]! I'm the [Dark Lord]!"
Her only friends were the dolls made from the power of [Darkness].
"Wet's pway tweasu hunt today!"
As the girl grew a little more and became even more familiar with the power of [Darkness], she broke free from the prison's constraints enough to move around somewhat.
"I found the book fiwst! Heehee."
Perhaps because it was a relic from the distant mythic age that predated the empire's use of it as a secret prison, the girl discovered ancient artifacts within.
"Fame means cwimbing the top? ...I dunno what that means!"
Content too difficult for a child to understand. But she had an abundance of time.
"Ooh! If I do it wike this, I can make wots of fwends at once!"
Spending all day poring over books from the mythic age, the girl eventually absorbed the ancient knowledge as her own.
"[Darkness Lightning]!"
Boom!
By the time the girl reached adulthood, she could wield the power of [Darkness] as freely as her own limbs.
Her strengthened power completely nullified the sealed prison's restrictions, and with a screeech!, she opened the entrance with her own strength and stepped outside.
Would she get to see Dada and Mama? Though abandoned by her parents—no, precisely because of that—she yearned for their love. She hoped they would embrace her and whisper words of affection, just as they did countless times in her dreams. She opened the door believing they would welcome her.
"...Huh?"
But the sight that greeted the girl upon escaping her prison was a devastated empire and imperial palace.
The palace lay in half-ruins, littered with corpses everywhere amid the desolation. The once-grand corridors were soaked in blood, and the air, once fragrant, reeked of rotting flesh.
"...Why?"
Dazed, the girl wandered through the wreckage of the imperial palace. All she saw were people dead in horrific states. It felt like standing in the heart of a nightmare.
It was when she made her way to the empress's annex, nostalgic for the past.
Just one person.
Cough! Cough!
"M-Mama!"
Surrounded by the bodies of five or six loyal knights, she found one person barely clinging to life.
How much she had longed for this. No matter how much time had passed, she could never forget that face.
The girl rushed to her still-living mother, the empress.
And she tried to manifest the power of [Darkness] to heal her wounds.
Slap!
But the empress's hand struck away the girl's.
"Wh-what... are you doing..."
Breathing raggedly, the empress glared at the girl with venomous eyes.
"Get those filthy hands... away from me..."
"Huh?"
"If I hadn't... given birth to you... we wouldn't have fallen..."
"M-Mama!"
"...This filthy... disaster... curses you..."
Even in her final moments, the empress spat curses at the girl, and the light faded from her eyes.
The girl couldn't move from the spot.
She had known her parents abandoned her. But she thought it was a mistake. She believed that once she opened the prison door, they could be a family again... that a happy ending like in the fairy tales awaited her.
Her mother's curse shattered that last hope.
Screeech... Thud!
The prison within her grew even more fortified.
Leaving the ruined palace behind, the girl departed the empire.
Other nations beyond the empire were no different.
Plague, war, disasters. The continent was being laid waste by countless calamities.
Even in such a world, the girl saved many people. She slew man-eating monsters threatening the innocent, stopped landslides that would swallow villages, and eliminated plague-spewing beasts.
She acted like the heroes from the fairy tales she remembered.
But she could never hear voices of gratitude.
-M-monster!
-You're the one spreading the plague, you witch!
-Save my husband, you evil bitch!
No matter where she went on the continent, neither she nor her [Darkness] were welcome.
Because she was born with the power of [Darkness]? Because the color of her power was dark? Was that why she was rejected?
With every new encounter that tore at her heart, the prison within her grew ever more solid. Impermeable to anyone entering or leaving.
Even if she wasn't accepted, even if she was rejected, the girl never stopped helping others. She never denied the power of [Darkness].
For she was the [Dark Lord].
And then the world ended.
After the apocalypse, the girl had become a constellation of the Tower.
Trapped in the heavens, she could no longer move freely as before, but at least no one rejected her.
The girl looked down upon the Tower.
And she found a man who looked exactly like the hero she had always wanted to be.
She asked him to become her apostle.
He accepted.
Unlike the people of the old continent, he didn't reject her just because her power was [Darkness].
On the contrary, he drew even closer to her.
It felt like she had a family.
The prison in her heart began to crumble, bit by bit.
And then she died.
Why? I tried so hard to stop you—why did you go off to die!
It was a death so befitting a hero.
But that's precisely why the girl couldn't accept it.
Did she die because of [Darkness]? Because of my power?
Was [Darkness] the problem?
The prison within her became more unyielding than ever before.
She no longer wanted to look down at the Tower.
She blocked her mouth, her ears, and spent her days only scrolling communities.
Ten years passed like that.
He opened the door to her prison.
He showed her the outside world.
He let her send off the one she could never forget.
It felt like liberation from the chains of [Darkness].
The apostle of [Darkness]. His hand was enough to pull her from the prison.
But her subconscious held her back.
-If you go like this, that man will die too, you know?
-You think [Darkness] will leave that guy alone?
"..."
The girl let go of his hand.
Then she shut herself away in the deepest recess of her prison.
"Heehee, fwends."
Returning to her childhood, making dolls just for herself.
To go back to that time when she hurt no one and no one hurt her.
She vowed never to open the door again.
"So that's why you weren't answering."
Bang!
The door opened once more.
"What kind of nonsense is that?"
Wider than ever before.