Zu Mari pressed a hand to his leg, cast a freezing spell into the flesh. For a moment it burned like liquid fire, then went mercifully numb. That distraction out of the way for now, he focused on the claw.

The beast was carrying him casually behind it now, as it lumbered toward the far end of the rapidly closing tunnel. Zu understood its strategy at once. It would stand just outside the compressing hallway, leaving only a single claw inside, let the walls crush Zu, then feast on his pulped remains.

"Not me," Zu panted, gripping the claw with both hands and forcing himself back up it inch by inch, toward the tip where he could slip off. "I won't be your pureed chow!"

The beast's claw, though as long as Zu's entire torso, was bone-like and thus had no sensation. It wasn't looking at him, assuming it had him well handled and not trying to keep him.

Zu pushed himself further up, straining against gravity, one leg tingling with cold, the other scrabbling to help push against the claw.

He almost made it. But the walls were closing too fast, and he didn't quite slip free before they brushed against his shoulders, anchoring him in place as firmly as a vice.

"NOOO!!" Zu roared, trying to twist aside, to slip out, but the claw held him in place and the walls pressed inexorably in.

He'd been so close...

Strain, pressure, then something in him broke, his body compressing and his spirit untethered, to drift free and disperse into eternity...

"Finally," whispered a voice, gentle and loving, a caress against Zu's frantic mind. He gasped for breath, dizzy and stumbling, stepping out from the portal and onto the tower balcony.

For a moment he thrashed against the chains binding his wrists and neck, causing them to tighten painfully. Kia whimpered and pressed herself against him.

"It's just a portal, stop flailing, kevnis," snarled Menya. “Move, line up!”

The prisoner chain had just stepped through the portal. None of them had been killed yet.

Zu... had gone back in time.

He couldn't help it, he laughed, weakly at first, half a sob, then longer and deeper as the reality of the situation revealed itself to him.

He wasn't alone. He wasn't helpless.

He was not going to die.

He could still loop. Everything would be fine.

"I knew you needed me," the voice whispered in his soul, gentle and teasing. Like a lover. "I wouldn't leave you alone."

"How... who are you?"

"I am Luja Ni, the Two-Part Soul of Reversion. I dwelt in the cube you took from the unworthy one, until you were called away from your world. I saw you would be taken from me, and... I couldn't let you. No one has ever needed me so much as you do. So instead of retreating back into my prison, I bound myself to your soul so that we would never be parted."

"You're the loop cube?"

"Yes. More accurately, I’m the being which lived within it, but close enough."

"And you're part of my soul now? Like my phoenix, or Heart of Fire and Spirit of Twilight Death?"

"I am. But more than those. I am yours, Zu."

He gazed around at the world, recognizing now that the vibrant tint to the sky and the city were not because they had a different atmosphere, but because the whole city was surrounded by an amber sphere of frozen light. Vast, so distant he’d not noticed the tint, but now that he was looking for it it was obvious.

“How?”

Luja Ni giggled in his mind. “I am so much stronger now that I’m free. The prison you carried limited my strength to that which it could safely contain. Now… now I am bound only by your will. We can do anything, Zu Mari.”

Someone slapped Zu hard, yanked him upright, and lined him up with the other prisoners. “Silence, kevnis!” Menya shouted in his face.

“Why do you keep calling everyone Kevnis?” Zu snapped. “My name is Zu Mari.”

“You are unworthy of a name, kevnis.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you are unworthy of a name,” Kia whispered, cringing away from Menya’s glower. She lowered her eyes and fell silent.

“It means that you are a worthless, nameless, valueless creature,” Menya said with slow deliberation, as though Zu were an idiot who didn’t know basic vocabulary. “If you prove yourself worthy of existing, you may be allowed to take a name. But you should consider that any name you may once have had is dead to you.”

Zu smiled. That was more words than he’d ever gotten out of Menya the first time around. His Protagonist Fragment was still working. He gave her the best polite bow he could manage while shackled. “Thank you for the explanation. I will give serious consideration to your existence before I determine whether to kill you or not.”

She slapped him. Hard. “Keep your insolence to yourself, kevnis.”

Zu nodded.

“When the Master arrives,” Nira said, drawing their attention with the quiet urgency of her tone, “you will bow. You will not speak unless asked to. You will not move unless ordered to. If you are selected, you will do exactly what is requested of you without speaking or arguing. No matter how debasing. The Master does not forgive any slight. If any of you harbors thoughts of defiance or resistance, forget them now.”

Her gaze lingered on Lukas, who stared back at her unflinching.

She continued through the same welcome speech, Menya interrupting as before when Nira started to get sentimental, then they went through with unbinding the captives from their silver thread.

“This is your first chance to prove your obedience. Remain in line where you were placed, and you may live another minute.”

Zu waited until neither woman was looking directly at him, then bolted for the balcony. He leapt off, diving from the tower toward the ground, throwing slanted steps before him to direct his angle. He directed his fall back and around the tower, beneath the balcony where he’d be hidden from the Master’s descent from above. He had no desire to be bound by oaths or thrown into the death corridor again.

He only slowed his fall as he neared the ground, using Striding Wind Sustaining like a stairway to arrest his momentum. He nearly stumbled at the last step, rolled to a stop on a rooftop, and crouched there for a long moment breathing heavily.

He looked up and behind him. No one was following. For the first time, Zu used Shadow's Darkest Secrets Surrounding, becoming little more than a Zu-shaped darkness, fading at the edges as light was reflected around and through him. As long as he stayed out of direct light and moved slowly, he should be completely unnoticed.

Being a prisoner was simply too unpleasant to continue doing without a break. Time to wreak some havoc instead.