Warnings: Trauma, sadism, pain, questionable humanity.


one - even if I am born again as someone else

Headon, if asked, will admit he does get some pleasure out of tormenting the tower's children. When you're as old as he is, you have to get your entertainment from somewhere, and since the gods don't get to die, his entertainment is attempting to destroy a system that doesn't think it should be destroyed. That does mean messing with children as they arrive, putting them in the most difficult positions possible.

It is, however, disappointing when someone else has done the work for him.

For instance, when a girl comes in fleeing from a demon, screaming about needing to climb, a need to escape a monster that had possessed her friend. Her eyes are wide, her hair frazzled, but she hasn't been harmed. There's not even a bruise.

She's easy to play with, she's easy to lock away and break. She doesn't belong, and she takes it personally.

But the light begins to shine again, and sheer unadulterated panic wells in her eyes. He doesn't feel sorry for her because she's not worth feeling sorry for. Not yet.

The one who opened the door has come.

He arrives slowly. And the shinsu hums around him, stroking open skin. What will he be called? What will he be needed for? What will he cause? These are the questions Headon wonders on whenever he sees an irregular arrive. They are so uncommon to the rest of the tower, but he knows. The other gods have plenty to play with.

Dressed in tattered, torrid looking clothes, untidy brown hair, at first he seems like nothing special. But Headon doesn't need eyes. He knows.

This is the one.

Then the child opens their eyes.

Headon… pauses.

What an unflinching, beautiful pair of eyes. Empty as a glass of water with no ice. There is something there surely, at the bottom, a deep-set grit in the deepest oceans. Oceans of gold. Hungrier than pupils in the dark.

There is not a single flaw here. This child will climb.

But who did this to him? Who broke him before Headon himself could have a taste? He wants to congratulate whoever did so, but also mourns the opportunity to create more cracks.

"Why hello there young one," he greets with a toothless smile. Just to see. "Welcome to the one who opened the door from the outside."

The boy sits up then rises to his feet. His expression is flat as a doll's, making his face waxen. "Good day," he greets and even his voice is hollow, well done to his players. "My name is the Twenty-Fifth Bam, and you are?"

"Quite a mouthful, may I just call you Bam?"

"If you give me your name, yes of course."

Headon can't help but smile. "Of course. My name is Headon. I am the guardian of the first floor of the tower."

"The first floor of the tower?" His voice dips as his expression twists into a frown. "I am here after all… just like Rachel said…" He fidgets a bit. "Did you see a blond girl in a red dress come through here?"

For a moment, Headon wonders if he should lie. What is the answer that will progress from that? What will the truth give?

He glances at the girl and to his surprise, the boy follows his gaze. He looks away and towards Headon again. "I understand. I would like to take the test and climb the tower, please and thank you."

"Oh would you now?" He can't help but show his teeth, spinning his staff to level an orb of shinsu at his new plaything. "The tower is dark and treacherous. Many horrible monsters await. Friend is foe, foe is friend. She might die before you see her again."

The boy pauses. Then. He. Laughs.

It's a sound akin to the caterwauling of an abandoned cat skinning its first meal.

"That's all right," he says, somehow meeting both of Headon's eyes. "I do not need to see her again. She does not wish for it and I could not burden myself with her desires anyway. I am going to climb the tower with or without her. Now, may I take the test?"

Headon is not shaken, but he shows his teeth.

"Of course, my young friend," he says. "If you would follow me."

Bam smiles and it is sweet as sugar until you meet the eyes.

The eyes cannot lie and they promise nothing, nothing at all.


Excited as Yuri is at the thought of an irregular arriving in the tower, she has to assume they all have death wishes because this one runs full tilt at the cage where the starving steel eel is. She can't have the kid die before she's gotten to know them. Come on! So she drops to see him.

Lands on his face. Well, you can't have everything.

At first glance, he looks so hopelessly plain. His hair reaches his shoulders and pools over what are the ugliest clothes on the planet for such a small, frail looking kid to wear, honestly that was a crime of its own.

Then she sees his eyes. His expression is mostly slack, as if he's forgotten how to smile. He stares at her from the ground, surprised and confused, and his eyes are so empty he probably barely even realizes he was hit. He just keeps looking at her.

Then his eyes fill with tears and the tears fall, all without a single change in expression.

"For fuck's sake Headon what did you do to him?" Yuri can't help but ask. She wants to wrap this kid in blankets and hug him in front of a fireplace.

Headon smiles and his eyes meet hers without fear or intent to lie, but he's an administrator. They lie because they can. "I'm afraid that he came like this, my lady."

Yuri raises an eyebrow at the administrator, but Evan coughs, so she turns to the kid, who is rubbing his eyes with his dirty sleeve. That's not gonna fly. No way is this kid going to survive with those clothes, that behavior, that anything. "Who are you?" she asks.

He blinks, opens and closes his mouth, and blurts out an odd jumble of words that she's never heard and could never understand. He doesn't… he doesn't have a Pocket? What?

She whirls on Headon, who only smiles, as if he doesn't know. There is so much she has to fix and she hasn't even gotten the kid's name yet.

She can't help but wonder if he even has one. He looks so lost and small.

How bad is the outside really, she asks herself. If a kid comes in all empty eyed like this?

He clutches the pocket before letting it fall to float at his side. Then he smiles at her once more, and bobs his head to everything she says. She can't tell if he understands her or is just trying not to get in trouble.

Well, at least he's cute.

"What's your name, kid?" she asks.

He tilts his head and speaks slowly, like he must be clear as day. "My name is the Twenty-Fifth Bam."

What a dull voice, she thinks. "Is that a designation of some sort, Bam?"

He blinks, startled. "No, Miss. That is just my name. There are no twenty-four other Bams, Miss."

"None of that Miss stuff," she says with an aching head. "Just Yuri."

"Yuri-ssi?" he tries, tongue stumbling.

"Nope!"

"Yuuri-noona?" he tries again, swallowing. Like the word is a punishable offense.

She squints at him. Then Yuri finds herself softening, grinning wide. "Yeah sure kid."

She kinda likes it to be honest. She's been the baby of the ranker princesses for ages.

He smiles, and it is timid and sweet and frightened.

The outside must be terrible to have such a broken kid want to be here instead.


Black March knows these fingers.

They are small and thin, starved and hungry and desperately frightened. Is it safe to remember them? Is it safe to fight?

She thrums her body, trying to remember why these fingers are important, why she doesn't mind their hand wrapped around her handle. They don't shake - this time - they know the correct grip - this time, and the boy - it's maybe a boy, it's definitely one in her mind's eyes - swings her about to test his arms.

The shinsu around her hums, welcoming, greeting the person holding her. He exhales.

And then he steps through the wave of shinsu.

It's dense, a swimming pool's bottom magnified by seven. It's nothing for her but he passes through it easily like it's air itself. Again, she recognizes. Then Black March pauses. Again?

"Kid," she says.

He freezes up, and then a smile tugs at his mouth unbidden. "You probably don't remember," he says softly. "But I'm incredibly glad to see you again."

For a moment she doesn't, and then she does. And she can't help but laugh. "I never forget a pretty face, kid."

The smile tugs his mouth, but it doesn't touch his eyes. She can see it in him. She can feel it in him, though he may not notice it himself:

Despair.

Death.

It walks in his shadow.

What happened when he first tried to climb the tower? What brought him back to now? Why can she remember that he climbed once before at all? There's something red too, deeper red than anything bright as the shinsu sun.

"What do you think, cutie?" She says, to draw away from the chill a weapon should not have, and should not feel (curse having a soul). "Why are you climbing the tower now? Did you fail that girl who is worth less than any gem?"

He pauses as the eel's languid swimming comes to an end. He smiles, and raises her from his right.

"No, Black March-ssi. She failed me. And I want to go for a happier place, a better person. She took everything from me. I must have it back."

"Revenge?" She tastes the word.

He hums. "A weapon does not have that kind of purpose without its owner's permission."

If she had a heart, it would break for him truly.

"Then let's find you a master, shall we my dear time traveling boy?"

The warm hand clutching her handle shakes a moment. Then it steadies and he draws her back like he's held a needle a million times. "Thank you," he whispers, and he dives into the mouth of the monster.

Ah this poor boy. This poor broken boy. He is in love. He is full of the love of a thousand. He must learn how to express it again. The least she can do is give him a way up. He keeps his promises after all.

She can do the same.


Regulars are nothing but sheep.

It's a very boring and disappointing thought for his first test, and he's not going to say it out loud; he's most certainly not an idiot. But for a debut test for the beginning regulars?

Khun's starting to wonder if his ranker siblings had exaggerated the difficulties of this test. It was just a weeding out of the weak and unwelcome, sure, but murder was basic. Even normal people before regulars had killed animals or something right?

He has advantages of course, and he's not afraid to use them, but still. He can't possibly look that helpless.

Khun steps slowly around the corpse of his latest idiot, wiping the blood off of his knife before getting rid of it. He has plenty of them, after all. His bag shifts, almost comically. So far, there's useful people around, but no one really worth noting.

He can't help but sigh to himself. Was he doomed to working with mediocre regulars on his way to the top and carrying them?

Was there anyone worth climbing with?

He begins to wander further west. There's little here that's exciting to him, and all of the areas are covered in blood or filled with the sound of people fighting with whatever they can get their hands on. It's almost worth checking the count of rapidly depleting regulars, but there's time yet.

Then he comes to a nearly silent clearing.

There is, of course, a corpse nearby, its throat neatly pierced with what was probably a needle first and a flurry of arrows second. A Da-an stands silently around the clearing. It blinks its many eyes, two locking onto him as he approaches. He inclines his head in greeting. It is only polite. After all, he isn't trying to kill Khun himself.

He nearly walks past the Da-an when he realizes: someone else has been standing there the whole time.

Khun shuts his eyes and exhales. There'd been no feeling of unease, no sense of danger. And yet now his scalp is prickling, awareness poking at his edges. Like whoever it is had wanted him to notice.

Well, that's fine. He can pick his battles well. Khun turns.

The person he had missed is sitting behind the Da-an. Legs crossed, their eyes are peacefully closed, relishing in the shade of the giant creature. They're small, clothes dirty and ill-fitting, hair trailing past their ears and spilling over their shoulders. They have a black needle in one hand (unusual but not important) and if their grip on the needle hadn't been so steady, Khun almost could have thought they were sleeping.

Khun's eyebrows go high. Interesting.

"Bold of you to sit there so peacefully in the middle of a test," he says, a smirk pulling at his lips.

The person opens their eyes and Khun almost steps back. They are a beautiful golden color, brighter than the ugly grass of the field. Yet they are almost lacking, like the light had been sucked out of them.

Then they smile at him. It lights up the gaze on him, the sky on him, everything seemingly bathed in the softest glow.

"Well," they say, voice boyish and soft and welcoming. "I'm trying to avoid fighting, so making as few sudden moves to catch attention as possible can only help a little."

Now Khun's eyebrows are at his hairline. "Is that so? Isn't that the point of the test?" His heart is not racing, but excitement, curiosity, interest, hums inside of him. A potential rulebreaker? A potential ally? Sure he looks, rather ordinary but at the same time, he'd positioned himself just so he couldn't be seen by most and could either cloak himself very well, or just wasn't that threatening. And hiding with a Da-an means he's likely at least willing to talk to others, establish alliances potentially, and could be persuasive enough to create one.

The boy hums a bit and slowly rises to his feet. Wiping his pants free of the excess dirt (there's really no saving those rags, Khun thinks with a mental grimace) he looks just to the right of Khun's eyes as he answers. "If I am capable of passing with minimal bloodshed, isn't it more cost-effective to do so?" He smiles again and for a moment, Khun wishes he'd stolen sunglasses from his father's treasury. He'd seen them in there. "Besides, the tower crushes enough dreams without me joining in. I'd like to do things differently."

Fascinating. "A man after my own heart," he says. Putting his bag in his other hand, he offers his free one. "I'm Khun Aguero Agnes," he says, watching his face, waiting for the inevitable. "And you are?"

The boy's smile is not timid, but it is hollow. His eyes are emptying slowly, and yet his name bears no excitement, no recognition, not even a hint of awe and terror or revulsion. He just takes Khun's hand gently in his own, and squeezes it. Like he's almost offering comfort.

"I'm the Twenty-Fifth Bam," he says gently. "It's very nice to meet you, Khun-ssi. Would you perhaps be willing to climb the tower with me?"

Suspicion prickles his neck and his excitement fades to wariness. No, this isn't right. Sure, that's normal, he's a Khun, making him an ally is beneficial, but as it stands, other than his presence, the boy has nothing to offer him. Asking Khun to climb with him implies he has something to offer beside his likely handiwork with the red corpse over there. That can be confidence, naivete, or arrogance.

"Why do you ask?" he asks, dropping his hand. The boy doesn't seem surprised, merely adjusts the weapon where it rests against his shoulder, hilt hidden from view. The smile is nearly permanent but tired out now.

"This will sound strange," Bam says slowly. "I once had someone who I would climb the tower for, who I'd do anything for. But, I have recently discovered they won't, or perhaps they're incapable, of being the same for me. So admittedly I feel a little lost."

He knows, Khun thinks with dread pulling up his gut and he doesn't know why. What does he care? It's gossip, the tower is full of gossip.

"And I…" Bam bites his lip. "I think I could really use a friend, even made under the guise of this situation."

Khun almost laughs. Almost. "Do I give off such a friendly vibe?"

"You didn't try to kill me," Bam says and now he looks Khun in the eye. "You have not tried to harm me even once, even though I'm weak and hiding behind someone else. That is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me. So, yes."

Khun blinks once. Then twice. All of the panic, the dread, the wariness, drains out into more curiosity. He's not lying. He's making every effort to hide the hilt of his weapon, which means it could be useful and he'd not be able to lie about it. He's still not attacking or aware seemingly of who Khun is after all. Which means, even if he does have some power, Bam is effectively harmless. To an extent. Not to his heart, he can already tell.

"You're interesting," Khun finally says, voice slow and measured. And he finds himself grinning. "A bit too interesting to resist."

Bam laughs, and the sound is sheepish but rings like an old bell. "I doubt that very much but thank you."

He's more than interesting, he's more than unusual; he's quite broken.

Anyone who laughs in the face of a murderer is definitely broken.

"Sure," Khun says now. "Let's climb the tower together, Bam."

He's too curious to let it go that's all.