Gedo was ambitious from a young age. Well, at that point ‘he’ wasn’t pretending to be a ‘he,’ and Lilian Muramasa was living a happy life with her mother. It wasn’t a great life, with plenty of power outages due to being unable to pay the electrical bills.

On top of that, there was also the ever present threat of gang violence breaking out in Chika, and to top it all off, her mother had to sell herself to keep paying the bills. She was treated like shit, and the only source of pleasure the woman had was bonding with Lilian at her home.

As such, the young Lilian grew up knowing nothing but love and hardship, and the two together made for a powerful motivator.

Night after night she would gaze at the majesty of the Steel Palace, so clearly pronounced on the cavern ceiling above them. She would imagine herself working as an aide to the king, or perhaps even a maid to the queen.

Those delusions of grandeur were all that kept her hopeful, and she wanted nothing more than to escape the violence on the streets, and bring her mother to a place where she’d never have to work a day in her life again.

Unfortunately, it was in the morning after such a night that everything changed. The officer had to explain it five times. It took that many attempts for the fact that Lilian’s mother would never come home again to sink in.

It had been one of her clients. He was the worst, and she regularly came home with black and blues after spending nights with him, but this time, he had taken his sick games too far.

By the time the police had been called, and had arrived at the scene, Lua Muramasa had been pronounced dead. The culprit had fled the scene, leaving nothing but sorrow and the destruction of a family in his wake.

Lilian was offered to be taken in by one of the police who had been to the crime scene, but she refused. She couldn’t bear to have left her mother’s house unattended, and so, that was how Lilian’s adolescence began.

It had taken the girl a month of crying herself to sleep, and regular check-ups by the police in order for her to actually get herself out of the house, but a mere six months after her mother’s passing, Lilian was on the streets.

Something had broken inside her. Her only reason to do well in school, and even stay there in the first place, was gone. With nothing to drive her upward towards Chichuu, she sank lower and lower into Chika’s underground scene.

She found herself selling drugs, and at 16, when she had enough money to move out of Chika, she chose to spend that money on more drugs. She was enthralled by the feeling of being a kingpin in the city, and her greed kept on growing.

Of course, one day it had apparently grown too big. She was visited by Gedo of all people, who delivered two pieces of information that day. If she kept growing as a single entity, without the protection of a gang, she could face assassination.

The second bit of information? She and the asshole were related. He had been the father that had left his baby mama because of commitment issues. That’s when the seed of hatred began to sprout in the chest of young Lilian.

He offered her a place by his side, and with the only other choice being to face the wrath of the other gangs in the area, she accepted.

However, it was really his treatment of the young Lilian and his first gift to her that created her Gedo persona. He told her to, “Stop acting like a woman! I need a male heir to continue my bloodline.”

When she inquired as to why he didn’t just have her sex changed when je took her in, he scoffed, telling her, “You’re not worth the money. When the time comes where you marry a woman, I’ll drop the cash then. Frankly, I don’t think you’ll even live that long.”

Instead, he made her remain in tip top shape, making sure that as much of her breast as butt fat was eliminated, making her look like a man with bulging muscles instead of a woman with a small, muscled chest.

Lilian felt her hatred continue to smolder in her chest, but kept it bottled up tightly. Unfortunately, that cork came undone at her seventeenth birthday party.

“Happy birthday, Gedo.” The old man had taken to calling her that, a perversion of his own love for himself. Go on, open it. I’m sure you’ll love it.”

Lilian rolled her eyes as she picked up one of the knives Gedo had laying around, and cut into the packaging on the massive present. It must have been three times her size, and she very quickly found out what was inside it.

A muffled scream came from the wrapping paper, and in a hurry Lilian tore off the remaining paper with her hand. She went wide-eyed staring at the large muscular man who was bound and gagged, tears streaming down his face.

“Aw, I knew you’d like it! This here is the man who killed your mother! The very one who beat her to death. Catching him was simple, really. We just followed the trail of beaten corpses in his wake. Now go on, kill him!”

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The man shook his head, but Lilian was seeing red. She picked up the knife, and walked towards the prone man as if in a trance. He screamed louder, and tried to squirm away. But she sank the knife into his leg, and he cried out in pain.

“Your fault.” A stab to his heel.

“Your fault.” A stab to his groin.

“Your fault.” A stab to his back

“It’s all your fault!” Lilian finally sank the blade hilt-deep into the man’s head, at which point he stopped whimpering as his life had been extinguished.

She was breathing heavily, all while dealing with a new voice in her head. “Hello, user. My name is Judgment. You have been selected to take place in the Trials of Damocles. Refusal to enter will be met with a memory wipe and relocation of the user. Do you wish to accept?”

An A.I. resembling her own body before she started living with Gedo appeared in the corner of her vision, and it was all she could do not to stare at it, and instead acknowledge her father, who was showing her with praise.

“In order to proceed in the Trials of Damocles, you will need to encounter another Judgment user. Would you like to listen to the full tutorial?”

“You’ve done so well, Gedo! Truly cutthroat! Just like your mother in her youth.” He looked her body up and down, a sick smile playing on his lips.

She accepted his pervertedly kind words, and schemed. Schemed with the help of Judgment, and finally, three years later, brought the city of Chika to its knees.

---

Of course, no amount of scheming could get her out of the predicament she was in now. She had acted weak and meek for the Faceless Demon, hoping he would fall for it, and attempt something stupid.

At least, that had been the plan. Before diving into his subspace, she had set her own pain receptors to zero, so that if she had to fight, she could do so with no restrictions.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t a Judgment she fought, but the owner of the damned subspace himself. It was her own damn fault, she should have left immediately upon his awakening, but her own greed had gotten the better of her once again.

He had disabled all of her tricks, and left her numb and unable to stand. He then proceeded to torturing her, or, at least, what she assumed to be torture. She was confident that it would be an infinite game of cat and mouse, where she wouldn’t yield because she couldn’t feel pain, and he would torture her until he grew bored.

Once he left his own subspace, there were plenty of ways to leave, but she just had to bide her time until that moment came. That entire plan had gone out the window at the first strike his whip had inflicted.

He tore off her shirt, and despite being trained to swim and change with the boys in high-school, she blushed, being unable to cover it up herself.

I really got to sell my fear here… eyes- perfect. Lips-perfect. Now, a tone like this... “You monster.” Lilian saw his eyes narrow, and she thought she had won, and successfully baited the Faceless Demon into beginning his torture without making any adjustments to her code.

That thought, and subsequent feeling of victory only lasted for a mere moment. She felt a sharp, electric-like pain course throughout her entire body, making it tingle. This is even with the receptors on zero!? What the-!

She nearly collapsed, and all that kept her up were the cuffs on her own wrists. Fuck me! What the hell is that power!?

“Oh come on, that was only the first hit. If you’re going to act this way throughout the entire interrogation, I’ll end up needing to torture your partner sooner rather than later.” He cracked his whip, and Lilian flinched involuntarily.

Damn this man! It wasn’t the pain that Lilian was annoyed with, it was the fact that a mere noise could make her body disobey her commands. Lilian looked across the room at Judgment, who was crucified on the wall of the dungeon. Another strike hit her, and her legs buckled again.

Lilian groaned through gritted teeth, and turned her head to look at her captor. “Will you tell me about that woman who claims to be the same person as Judgment, here? Or maybe about what you were doing here in the first place?”

For some reason, Lilian found his calm face extremely irritating. “No, go fuck yourself.” She tried to spit at his feet, but it just landed on her own back, and slid down to her pants.

He didn’t laugh, but instead, readjusted his grip on the whip. Lilian turned her face away and braced herself, but the strike never came. Curious, she turned her head back to face her captor, and found that he wasn’t there. That was when she felt the whip on her chest, and she cried out in pain.

She dangled from the cuffs again, and once again, the Faceless Demon looked down at her, devoid of all emotion. “How about now. Are you compelled to speak? I can keep this up all day.

This time, she spat weakly at his feet, but it hit the intended target. “No. Suck my dick.”

The Demon’s eyes narrowed once more, and he grabbed at Lilian’s belt. “I won’t suck it, but I will do something much, much worse to it.”

Oh shit, oh shit! Me and my big mouth! Lilian tried to resist the Demon’s grasp, but it was futile, and soon enough, she was baring herself to the man.

Her breathing intensified, and she started squirming. Only this time, it wasn’t acting. She was genuinely scared. “Please don’t rape me!” She cried.

The one fear she had held onto since childhood was the one that she would be taken against her will, in the worst possible way.

“Well, that explains a lot.” The Faceless Demon spoke. “Also, of course I won’t. The only time I’d ever do anything resembling that would be during consensual nonconsent.”

Lilian was somewhat confused by his words, but relieved she wouldn’t be forced to . That relief only lasted until the whip cracked again.

“That being said, I still do need that information, so…” He raised the weapon again, and tears began to fall down Lilian’s face.

“I won’t forgive you! I swear I’ll end your existence! When I get out I’ll murder you and your entire family!” The Demon merely sighed at the threats, and made to follow through with a strike to her crotch when a voice stopped him.

“Please, do not hurt my user further.” Lilian looked up and saw Judgment, now looking back at her. “Could I interest you in some information about the Trial of Damocles, Mr. Faceless Demon?”