Before he could finish, Zara cut him off with the casual impatience of someone who spoke only to provoke clarity. "Let's ignore that for a second. Tell me this.. let's say you die right now. Everything ends. Would you be satisfied with what you have accomplished in your life? All the years you've lived ..would you be satisfied?"

The question landed like a stone; it hit a part of him that was too often kept neatly bandaged. For the first time since he had spoken of fate and defiance, Razeal had to stop. Her question was not about anger or plans or who owed what to whom. It was about a single, terrible metric: true satisfaction.

He closed his mouth. Whatever reply he had rehearsed the lines about taking what was his, the vows about ripping fate apart evaporated. That simple, merciless question demanded more than an argument. It demanded an inventory of a life. Razeal felt the air around him narrow

A shadow chair materialized beneath him without a sound. He sat down, not because his legs failed, but because sitting made the inward scrutiny easier. He forced himself to look at the floor.. Looking down at the floor felt safer than looking at her. And let the memories come not in neat lines, but in a rush of images and bruises: birth, childhood, the long string of days where surviving was the only thing that mattered. Everything replayed ..small moments and monstrous ones as if some invisible projector had turned on inside his head.

Zara said nothing. She simply watched him, a faint smile at the corner of her mouth as if she were reading a private book. Time, for her, was a long thing. For him it suddenly felt too short.

He sat there motionless and silent, staring at the ground. The replay kept running: a life of running, of pain and suspicion, of never having a single place to call peace. He had never built anything that people usually built no playing, no friendships, no messy, or even ordinary relationships because people betrayed, and betrayal had taught him to keep himself small and hard. He had sharpened himself into someone who didn't feel, someone who traded warmth for armor. That strategy had been survival. And for a while, it had worked.

But now, thinking about it under Zara's question, those victories felt thin. The acts that once tasted of satisfaction the revenge, the punishments he'd handed out to those who'd hurt him replayed too. There had been a flash then, a surge of satisfaction when he struck back tortured them, when he had power now over those who'd been unreasonable. But when he watched those scenes now, they felt ....meaningless?like pages torn from a book that no longer mattered. Just… yes, he had done those things. So what?

Zara remained still, her eyes never leaving his face. She watched every subtle shift: the way his jaw clenched and relaxed, the tense flicker in his eyes, the pale choreography of emotions he barely allowed himself to show. For her who had lived through eons this moment was a small ripple. She could stay a thousand lifetimes and it would be no bother. So she sat, patient as stone, and studied him.

Hours bled into one another. They sat like that wordless, unmoving. Time stretched until it felt like an ache in the bones. Thirty-five hours passed, each one marked only by the slow rotation of his thoughts and the steady calm of her observation. Razeal did not move; his silence was a man folding in on himself, watching the history of his life scroll by.

At last, unaware of how much time had gone by, he raised his head. His eyes met Zara's. For the first time in the long silence, something in his face softened not with relief, but with the quiet acceptance of a man who'd seen the truth and could not unsee it.

"No," he said finally, the word flat and honest. "I wouldn't feel even a little accomplished if I died right now." He let out a breath that sounded like surrender. "That's it."

The admission tasted like iron and relief at once. It had the bluntness of someone who had counted and found the sum lacking. He had expected fighting, or denial, or some fierce restatement of purpose but the truth arrived like a cliff-edge and he had to call it by its name.

"How about if you died after all the fate you are trying so hard to reject?" Zara's voice slipped into the silence like a knife. She leaned forward slightly, her dark eyes fixed on him with that maddening calm of hers. "Let's say you truly did what your fate doesn't want you to do. Just like how you've planned it. The revenge, too. Would you feel accomplished?"

A faint, dangerous smile curved across her lips, sharp as the edge of a blade, while her gaze traced every subtle shift in his expression. His face was a battlefield of conflicting emotions defiance, doubt, and the weight of unspoken truths warring inside him.

"Yes, I would. Definitely," Razeal said without hesitation. His voice came out firm, carrying a clarity that almost startled him. Deep down, it was the truth he clung to: the thought of standing over the corpse of fate itself, breaking the script that had chained him since his rebirth. That image alone promised a satisfaction nothing else in the world could give. Perhaps the reason he felt so hollow about dying now was because he hadn't even begun to carve that path fully not even scratched the surface of what he had vowed.

But Zara only shook her head slightly, her smile never faltering. "No, you wouldn't."

The calm certainty in her voice made the words sting sharper than a shout. "You don't know it because you haven't lived that life yet. But I know. You wouldn't feel accomplished, not truly. Because you've never done anything for yourself. When your time comes, and you look back.. believe me you won't find satisfaction. You'll find nothing but emptiness."

"I would. I know I would," Razeal shot back, shaking his head, clinging to his own truth. His eyes burned with the need to reject her statement. He knew himself better than anyone else could. How dare she say otherwise?

Zara tilted her head, her voice slicing again before he could gather more words. "Would you be happy then? Or would it just be satisfaction at having done it?"

Her question cut deeper than the first.

"What's the difference?" Razeal demanded. His tone was sharp, but beneath it his chest clouded. He locked his eyes on her, watching her face the way it held that infuriating poise, the way her expression was carved with the wisdom of someone who had lived through endless lifetimes. She looked like she already had the answer written in her bones.

"You know the difference," she said softly, her gaze unrelenting. She didn't explain further. She didn't need to.

Razeal closed his mouth. A silence stretched. Maybe she was right maybe he was refusing to face what he already knew. Would he really be happy, even if he defied fate? Even if he tore apart every chain, spat in destiny's face, and carved his own end? Yes, the thought of it gave him satisfaction. But happiness? What would be left after that? What joy could there be in winning a war that had stolen everything from him before he even had the chance to live? What remained when victory was nothing but ashes and silence?

He clenched his fists, nails digging into his palms, but the truth whispered within him: he would never be happy. Not from that.

Zara's voice slipped into his thoughts again, calm and merciless. "Look, kid… everything you are working for now, everything you think you have.. you're going to lose it. Inevitably."

Her words carried no pity, only truth. "Because that's what life is. Anything you hold now will vanish. One day, you'll lose it all. Even this strength of mine and even this life" she gestured idly at herself, her form radiating that quiet, terrifying power "I've carried it for eons, for eternities. I have lived for years so vast you couldn't even begin to imagine them. And yet even I know.. one day it will all disappear. I don't know how, or when, or why. But it will. That is the inevitability of life. So don't chain yourself with fear of it. Live."

She leaned back in her chair, her posture loosening, her arms uncrossing as her voice softened not with kindness, but with something that carried weight. "While you live, try to find the real reason why you exist. What you are living for. Yes, growing stronger, fighting, surviving.. it isn't wrong. But don't mistake those things for your purpose. Keep them at your side, not inside your soul. Don't waste the chance to truly live for yourself. That is all that matters."

Her dark eyes fixed on him again, pinning him where he sat. "Even if it is just one day... can't you live it for yourself? One single day where you can be happy enough to not regret dying right after?"

Her lips curved again, though this time it was less sharp, almost weary. "Me? I have lived too long. Far, far too long. And I will tell you this living for eternity is not as great as you think. It's boring. Utterly, soul crushingly boring. If I died right now, I would welcome it. I have already lived enough."

She folded her hands neatly in her lap, crossing her legs once again with elegant ease.

Razeal stared at her, his lips pressed in no reaction, but his eyes conflicted. He didn't answer. He couldn't not with words that felt hollow in his chest. So he just looked at her, letting her words sink into him like stones dropping into deep water.

Zara tilted her head, her expression unreadable now. Then her voice came again, carrying a weight that was almost intimate in its simplicity.

"One should be selfish," she said. "There's nothing wrong in it. In fact, it may be the only true way to live."

She paused deliberately, letting the silence stretch before she spoke again.

"Do you know what the difference is between a hero and a villain?" Zara asked, remembering the last time Razeal came he had been talking about becoming a villain.

Razeal, drawn into her rhythm despite himself, asked instinctively, "What?"

"A villain is someone who is very selfish which isn't inherently wrong. He thinks of his own happiness first, before anyone else." She watched him as she spoke, letting each phrase hang in the air.

Razeal didn't interrupt. He let her continue.

"A hero, on the other hand, is selfish in the opposite way: he's selfish for others. He sacrifices himself so others can live. People idolize that. They love the hero because he appears to put everyone else first. The villain is hated because he does things for himself because he refuses to make everyone his priority." Zara's dark eyes glinted in the dim space between them. "It's disgusting, the way selfishness is portrayed. The world calls the villain abhorrent for wanting his own happiness, while worshipping the hero who gives himself away."

She leaned forward, voice sharpening. "But in the end, when the final hour comes who do you think will feel more satisfied? Who will, at last, be more content?"

Razeal blinked. He watched her as if the question were a mirror.

"It will be the villain," she said, almost gently. "Because he thought of himself at least once. The hero will, more often than not, have a sad ending not because he did wrong, but because he forgot himself. He spent his life making everyone else happy and never remembered what his life was for. The true nature of living, the raw truth, is that it's for you. Think for yourself. You have every right to be happy. Why should selfishness be a sin? Put yourself first. If you don't, when your life ends you will regret it." She didn't demand; she advised, cold and precise.

Razeal sat very still. Zara's words were blunt, but they cut into corners of him he rarely let be seen. He could feel the truth of them scraping at something raw and hollow.

"Do you know why you never felt happy when you tried to remember everything?" Zara asked, watching him closely. He was quiet a hollowed-out silence that made the question land heavier.

"I don't know," he said honestly. It wasn't a lie. He genuinely did not know.

"Because you never tried to find it," she answered, and her tone was almost amused. "Maybe you never even looked for happiness. You forgot what actually mattered to you." She laughed, small and dry, at the tremor that ran through his eyelids. Razeal's eyes widened as if a fog had lifted.

The sensation was immediate and violent: darkness that had been wrapped around his thoughts that steady, suffocating fog of purpose and revenge cracked open like thin glass. For a moment he was wordless, stunned, as if someone had switched on a harsh light in a long night. Memories tumbled, some dull and flattened by time, others bright and painful. He found himself staring at Zara, unable to form an answer that might carry the weight of what he was feeling.

When he finally closed his eyes, it was with the reluctant, honest admission of someone surprised by his own heart. She was right. For as long as he could remember he had planned, struck, survived always in service of an end. He had mapped out outcomes and optimized for survival and victory. He'd never asked: what would make me glad, even briefly? Which small moments would count as living?

The realization hit him like a cold wind. He'd been chasing a future that was measured in triumphs and in retribution, never in quiet mornings or stupid laughter. He had treated his life like a ledger: victories tallied, debts repaid. Happiness had been a ledger item he'd never allowed himself to tally.

When Razeal opened his eyes, the expression on his face was different not softened, exactly, but quieter. "Thank you," he said, almost a whisper. It came out thinner than he intended, almost foreign. He had never thanked anyone for something like this before; he hadn't expected that the simple act of being forced to look at himself would feel like a kindness.

Zara's face did not change. She didn't smile or offer the shallow comfort of the easy mentor. She sat still, composed, as if he had simply made a sensible observation and nothing more. That unreadability that refusal to reward him with a soft look made him feel smaller and, oddly, steadier.

He swallowed and tried again, choosing his words like stones in a riverbed. "Can I ask you a favor?"

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