Dawn in Pirenze was still dark.
The old alleys that should have been packed with tourists were completely deserted. Only faint moonlight settled over the damp stone pavement.
An old monastery on one side of the city, barely marked on any map.
Deep beneath it, Maria was trapped inside a painting, staring at a man.
A black brush was clutched in the man's hand.
Its shape was exactly the same as the silver brush's.
But the feeling it gave off was completely different.
If the silver brush held light, the black brush seemed to suck in the light around it.
The man spoke.
"Let's finish the last painting now."
Maria asked in a trembling voice,
"You…… you painted the true Mona Lisa?"
The man smiled.
"To be precise, I painted the first face."
"That's a lie."
"Why do you think that?"
"The Mona Lisa began with Isabella."
The man's eyes turned cold.
"Because that's how history was made."
He approached the painting.
"Leonardo was a very clever man."
"You knew Leonardo?"
"Of course I did."
The man raised the black brush and pointed it at Maria's face inside the painting.
"We were friends once."
Maria swallowed hard.
"What's your name?"
The man was silent for a moment.
Then he said,
"Matteo."
"Matteo……?"
"Matteo Bellini."
Maria had never heard the name before.
The man gave a bitter smile.
"Of course you haven't. It's a name that was erased from the world."
"Who erased it?"
"You already know."
Maria's expression stiffened.
"Leonardo?"
Matteo did not answer.
Instead, he pulled aside an old cloth hanging on the monastery wall.
A massive painting appeared behind it.
Maria held her breath.
Three young painters stood in the painting.
One was Leonardo.
Another was an unfamiliar woman.
And the last was Matteo.
A date was written beneath the painting.
1478.
Long before the Mona Lisa appeared in the world.
"There were three of us."
Matteo spoke.
"We believed we could preserve human memories through paintings."
"Was that possible?"
"You've already seen it."
Maria couldn't say a word.
People trapped inside paintings.
Memories that had remained for five hundred years.
Pierre and herself.
Maybe everything had begun with that research.
"At first, our purpose was noble."
Matteo continued.
"If you could leave the face and memories of someone you loved in a painting even after they died, how beautiful would that be?"
Maria asked,
"Then why did it become this?"
Matteo's expression darkened.
"Because we did something we never should have done."
"What?"
"We didn't paint the dead……"
He slowly looked at Maria.
"We painted someone who hadn't been born yet."
Maria's eyes widened.
"Someone from the future?"
"Yes."
"How?"
Matteo held up the black brush.
"With this."
Maria stared at the brush.
"Who made it?"
"I did."
"The silver brush too?"
Matteo's expression shifted strangely.
"Leonardo made the silver brush."
Maria was stunned.
"Then were the two brushes a pair from the beginning?"
"No."
Matteo shook his head.
"The silver brush was made to stop my black brush."
At the same time.
Paris.
Pierre stood before the Mona Lisa in the Louvre, clutching a small piece of paper.
Pirenze.
Don't come looking for me.
She's still alive.
And the Mona Lisa clearly said—
Maria is in danger.
Pierre immediately called Jean.
"Jean."
A sleep-heavy voice answered.
"Pierre? Do you know what time it is?"
"We have to go to Pirenze."
A brief silence.
"What?"
"Maria is alive."
Jean's voice snapped fully awake.
"Are you sure?"
"I got a message."
"From who?"
Pierre looked at the Mona Lisa.
"From the painting."
A long sigh came from Jean's end.
"From now on, I'm living in a house without paintings."
"You're coming with me, right?"
"What if I say no?"
"I'll go alone."
"I figured."
Jean said,
"Meet me at the airport."
After hanging up, Pierre looked at the painting again.
"What happened to Maria?"
The painting did not move.
"Tell me."
Silence.
"You told me to go to Pirenze."
Then the Mona Lisa's eyes moved ever so slightly.
"The black brush."
Pierre froze.
"What did you say?"
"The person who has it found Maria."
"Who is he?"
"A painter erased from history."
"What's his name?"
The woman in the painting answered.
"Matteo."
Pierre had never heard the name before.
"Why is Matteo looking for Maria?"
The Mona Lisa's smile vanished.
"Because Maria is the only one who remembers the face he wants."
"What face?"
The painting fell silent again.
Pierre stepped closer.
"Tell me."
A small voice came after a long while.
"A face that must not exist in this world."
Several hours later.
Pierre and Jean were on their way to Pirenze.
Pierre couldn't sleep even on the plane.
He only stared at the clouds outside the window.
Jean asked,
"Do you regret it?"
"Regret what?"
"Moving the brush that day."
Pierre thought for a moment.
"I don't know."
"I regret it."
Pierre looked at Jean.
"Why?"
"Because I haven't been able to look at paintings since that day."
Jean pointed at the screen on the seat in front of them.
A woman's portrait was playing in an advertisement.
"I feel like she's about to start talking to me."
Pierre smiled for the first time.
"It's just an ad."
"The Mona Lisa was just a painting at first too."
He wasn't wrong.
Pierre turned his gaze back toward the window.
Then he noticed something strange.
His face was reflected in the window.
But—
Pierre moved, and the reflected face did not.
He went rigid.
The Pierre in the window smiled.
Pierre himself wasn't smiling.
"Jean."
"What?"
"Look at the window."
Jean looked.
"What?"
At that moment, the reflected face returned to normal.
"There's nothing there."
Pierre didn't take his eyes off the window.
Something was following them.
By the time they arrived in Pirenze, it was afternoon.
The two men followed the symbol on the paper Maria had left behind and found the old monastery.
The building stood in a remote area far from the tourist sites.
The iron gate was locked.
Jean said,
"And this time, we don't even have a key."
Pierre pulled an old brush from his pocket.
It was what the silver brush had become after losing its power.
"Don't tell me you're going to use that to open it."
Pierre brought the brush to the gate.
Nothing happened.
Jean snorted.
"Figures. It's just a brush now."
Pierre examined it closely.
Then small letters appeared at the end of the handle.
Remember.
Pierre murmured,
"Remember?"
In that instant, Maria's voice echoed in his mind.
My brother will never be able to forget me.
Pierre closed his eyes.
He pictured Maria as a child.
The memories of the two of them playing together inside the painting.
Maria's smiling face.
The moments they ran around hand in hand.
At that moment, the brush began to shine silver.
Click.
The gate opened.
Jean's mouth fell open.
"Guess I won't need a key if I travel with you from now on."
"Let's go in."
The monastery was quiet inside.
Old religious icons hung on the walls.
But something was strange.
The eyes of every person in every painting had been erased.
Jean said quietly,
"Looks like someone did it on purpose."
Pierre examined one up close.
There were traces of paint applied over the original.
Black.
At that moment, the singing voice of a little girl drifted from somewhere.
"Did you hear that?"
Jean nodded.
The two men followed the sound down the stairs.
Underground.
Deeper underground.
And at the bottom of the final staircase stood a small door.
A sentence was engraved above it.
Paintings never lie.
Pierre pushed the door open.
Screeeeech—
Hundreds of portraits filled the room.
But every painting was strange.
They had no faces.
The bodies and clothes were drawn perfectly, but the face portion was completely blank.
Jean whispered,
"What is all this?"
"Failed paintings."
A man's voice came from behind them.
They turned around.
Matteo stood there.
The black brush was in his hand.
Pierre asked,
"Matteo?"
The man smiled.
"We finally meet."
"Where's Maria?"
"Of course that's your first question."
"Where is she?!"
Matteo pointed at the wall.
A small painting hung there.
Maria.
"Brother!"
"Maria!"
Pierre rushed forward.
But Matteo drew a line through the air with the black brush.
A black wall appeared in front of Pierre.
Bang!
Pierre was thrown backward.
Jean caught him.
"Are you okay?"
Pierre got back to his feet.
"Let Maria go."
Matteo said,
"I can't do that."
"Why not?"
"Because she has a memory I need."
"What memory?"
Matteo looked at Maria inside the painting.
"The first face."
Pierre's expression hardened.
"Elena?"
Matteo laughed.
"You still believe that woman is the real one?"
"What does that mean?"
"Elena was merely the face Leonardo wanted to see."
"Then what was the true face?"
"No one knows."
Matteo continued,
"Except me and Maria."
Maria shouted,
"That's a lie! I don't know either!"
"You simply haven't remembered yet."
Matteo brought the black brush to the painting.
He drew black lines around Maria's face.
Maria screamed.
"Stop!"
Pierre shouted.
Matteo stopped the brush.
"Then let's make a deal."
"What deal?"
"Give me the silver brush."
Pierre clutched his brush.
"It doesn't have any power anymore."
"Does it look that way?"
Matteo smiled.
"The brush hasn't awakened yet."
"Why do you need it?"
"If I combine the two brushes, I can finish the last painting."
"What painting?"
Matteo answered slowly,
"A portrait of someone who doesn't yet exist in this world."
Jean said,
"You're going to paint someone from the future?"
"Yes."
"Who?"
Matteo looked at Pierre.
"Someone who will change the world."
"What's the name?"
"He doesn't have a name yet."
"Then how will you paint him?"
A smile appeared at the corner of Matteo's mouth.
"That's why I need Maria."
He approached Maria inside the painting.
"This girl remembers the future."
Pierre shook his head.
"How can anyone remember the future?"
"Do you still think time is a straight line?"
Matteo drew a circle with the black brush.
"Inside a painting, the past and future are no different."
Scenes appeared inside the black circle.
War.
Cities collapsing.
Streets devoid of people.
And a massive museum.
A single painting hung in the center of the museum.
Millions of people knelt before it.
Pierre asked,
"What is that?"
Matteo answered,
"The last portrait."
"Why are they bowing to it?"
"Because the painting controls their memories."
Pierre's face hardened.
"Is that what you want?"
"I don't intend to rule the world."
"Then what do you want?"
Anger appeared in Matteo's eyes.
"I intend to correct history."
"History?"
"Leonardo erased my name."
He pointed at the faceless paintings on the wall.
"He took my paintings and claimed my research as his own."
"Do you have proof?"
"Proof?"
Matteo laughed.
"You are the proof."
Pierre froze.
"Me?"
"Do you know who painted you first?"
Pierre remembered Leonardo's words.
A burning city painted by an unknown artist.
Young Pierre inside that painting.
"Don't tell me……"
Matteo said,
"It was me."
Pierre stopped breathing.
"You painted me?"
"Yes."
"Then Maria too?"
"I didn't paint Maria."
"Who did?"
Matteo looked at Maria inside the painting.
"You did."
Pierre staggered backward.
"What are you talking about?"
"You were lonely."
Matteo's voice dropped.
"You were a child living alone inside a painting."
Something flashed through Pierre's mind.
His younger self.
A blank canvas.
A brush.
And a hand drawing a little girl.
Brother.
Pierre clutched his head.
"No……"
Maria shouted,
"Don't listen to him!"
But the memory continued.
Young Pierre drew the girl's eyes.
Her nose.
Her mouth.
Her hair.
And finally, her hands.
At that moment, the girl opened her eyes inside the painting.
"Hello?"
Young Pierre smiled.
"What's your name?"
The girl answered,
"I don't have one."
"Then I'll give you one."
"What is it?"
"Maria."
The memory ended.
Pierre dropped to his knees.
"I……"
Tears streamed from Maria's eyes.
"Brother."
"I drew you?"
Maria couldn't answer.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because you thought of me as your little sister."
"Then you're……"
Pierre's voice trembled.
"You're not really my sister?"
Maria was silent for a long time.
Then she said,
"I don't know either."
"What?"
"What makes people family?"
Pierre looked at Maria.
"Do you have to be born to the same parents to be family?"
Her tears fell from inside the painting.
"I waited for you for five hundred years, Brother."
Tears filled Pierre's eyes too.
Maria said,
"That's enough for me."
Pierre slowly rose.
Then he looked at Matteo.
"Let Maria go."
"The brush first."
"No."
Matteo's expression turned cold.
"Then I'll erase your sister's face."
The black brush pointed at Maria's face.
Pierre raised the silver brush.
"Go ahead."
Matteo stopped.
"What?"
"The moment you erase Maria's face, you'll lose the memory you want too, won't you?"
Matteo's eyes wavered.
Pierre realized it.
"I knew it."
"What are you talking about?"
"You can't erase Maria just like that either."
Matteo did not answer.
At that moment, Pierre drew a line through the air with the silver brush.
Silver light burst forth.
The black wall split apart.
Bang!
"Brother!"
Pierre ran toward Maria's painting.
Matteo moved too.
The black and silver brushes collided.
Boom!
Hundreds of paintings in the room shook at once.
Black and silver light tangled together.
Matteo gritted his teeth.
"You don't know how to use that brush!"
Pierre said,
"Then I'll learn."
"From whom?"
Pierre looked at Maria.
"From my sister."
Maria smiled.
At that moment, the silver brush shone fiercely.
Matteo was forced backward.
"This is impossible……"
Pierre drew a small door on the painting.
A doorknob.
Hinges.
And a keyhole.
Maria said,
"Open it one last time."
Pierre inserted the brush into the keyhole.
Click.
The door inside the painting opened.
Maria stepped out of the painting.
Then she ran into Pierre's arms.
"Brother!"
Pierre pulled Maria into a hug.
This time, it wasn't a painting.
She was warm.
It was real body heat.
"I'll never leave you alone inside a painting again."
Maria smiled.
"Promise?"
"Promise."
But at that moment—
Thud.
Pierre's eyes widened.
The black brush had pierced through his back.
"Brother!"
Maria screamed.
Pierre slowly looked down.
The tip of the black brush protruded from his chest.
Matteo whispered from behind him,
"I'm sorry."
The silver brush fell from Pierre's hand.
"Pierre!"
Jean charged at Matteo, but a black line sent him flying into the wall.
Maria caught Pierre.
"Brother! Open your eyes!"
Pierre's knees hit the floor.
Strangely, no blood came out.
Instead, something was being pulled from his body.
Glowing fragments.
Memories.
His childhood.
The Louvre.
Jean.
Leonardo.
Elena.
And Maria.
Matteo pulled out the black brush.
"He won't die."
Maria cried out through her tears,
"What did you do to him?!"
"I only drew out his oldest memory."
A small light gathered at the tip of the black brush.
A painting appeared inside it.
Matteo's eyes widened.
"At last."
Pierre raised his head with difficulty.
"What…… did you find?"
Matteo stared at the memory floating in the air.
A woman stood inside it.
She was unlike anyone they had seen before.
She was not Elena.
Nor Lisa.
Nor Isabella.
Nor the woman in the white dress.
The woman held young Pierre in her arms.
And she was singing to him.
Maria whispered,
"Who is she……?"
Matteo's face went pale.
"This can't be."
Pierre asked,
"Who is she……?"
Matteo took a step back.
For the first time, fear appeared on the face that had been so confident moments ago.
"Why is she in your memory?"
"You know her?"
Matteo did not answer.
The woman in the memory slowly turned her head.
And—
she looked at Matteo outside the memory.
Matteo dropped the black brush.
"No."
The woman in the memory smiled.
The smile was so familiar.
The Mona Lisa's smile.
But Pierre instinctively knew.
It was the source of every smile they had seen so far.
The true first smile.
The woman said to young Pierre,
"Someday, the day will come when you draw me again."
Young Pierre asked,
"Where are you going, Mom?"
Pierre in the present froze.
"Mom……?"
Maria looked at Pierre too.
The woman in the memory kissed young Pierre's forehead.
"Very far away."
"I'll go with you."
"No."
"Why not?"
The woman smiled sadly.
"You need a future for yourself, and I need to go back."
The scene began to shake.
Matteo screamed,
"Close the memory!"
Pierre looked at him.
"Why?"
"Close it now!"
"Isn't that the face you've been looking for?"
Matteo shook his head.
"That woman must not be drawn."
"Why?"
Matteo's lips trembled.
"She isn't someone from the future."
"Then what is she?"
Matteo said,
"She's the one who paints the future."
At that moment, the woman in the memory turned her head again.
This time, she looked directly at Pierre in the present.
"Pierre."
Pierre's heart seemed to stop.
A being from a memory five hundred years old was looking at him in the present.
"Mom……?"
The woman smiled.
"You've finally remembered."
Maria took Pierre's hand.
"Brother, is she really……?"
Pierre couldn't answer.
The woman reached out her hand.
Her hand crossed the boundary of the memory and emerged into reality.
Matteo stepped backward.
"No!"
The woman's arm.
Her shoulder.
Her face.
And then her entire body walked out of the memory.
A memory from five hundred years ago became reality.
Pierre couldn't move.
The woman stood before him.
Then she cupped his face in both hands.
"You've grown so much."
Tears streamed from Pierre's eyes.
"Are you…… my mother?"
The woman nodded.
"Yes."
"What's your name?"
Just as the woman was about to answer, Matteo picked up the black brush.
"No!"
He drew a black line toward the woman.
But the woman moved a single finger.
The black line stopped in midair.
Matteo's face hardened.
"How……?"
The woman looked at the black brush.
"You still have it."
"You…… remember me?"
"Of course."
Matteo's body trembled.
"Then why did you abandon me?"
The woman looked at him sadly.
"I never abandoned you."
"Liar!"
"Matteo."
The moment she spoke his name, tears fell from Matteo's eyes.
"You remember my name……"
A name that had vanished from history for five hundred years.
Someone was remembering him for the first time.
The woman said,
"Because you were my child too."
Pierre's face stiffened.
Maria held her breath.
"What did you say?"
Pierre asked.
The woman looked back and forth between Pierre and Matteo.
"You two weren't strangers when you first met."
Matteo shook his head.
"Stop."
"You knew each other long before five hundred years ago."
"Don't say it!"
The woman said,
"Pierre and Matteo are brothers."
Silence.
Pierre looked at Matteo.
"Brothers?"
Matteo clutched the black brush.
"It's a lie."
But tears continued to stream from his eyes.
The woman said to Pierre,
"And Maria is too."
Pierre looked at Maria.
"Maria too?"
"Yes."
The woman looked at all three of them and said,
"The three of you are children born from the first painting I ever made."
Pierre asked with difficulty,
"Then you're a painter?"
The woman nodded.
"The first painter."
"What's your name?"
At that moment, the entire monastery began to shake.
Hundreds of paintings fell from the walls at once.
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Black liquid began to seep from the blank faces of the paintings scattered across the floor.
The woman's expression hardened.
"It's too late."
"What's too late?"
"When I came out of the memory, I opened that door too."
"What door?"
The woman looked up at the ceiling.
"The door leading to where paintings were born."
Matteo's face went pale.
"Don't tell me……"
The woman said,
"The Original Painting Room."
In an instant, the entire underground wall split apart.
A massive space appeared behind it.
A room with no visible end.
Only one painting hung there.
A painting larger than the walls of the monastery itself.
It was covered with a cloth.
Pierre asked,
"What is that?"
The woman didn't answer.
"Mom."
The woman's eyes wavered at the word.
Pierre asked again,
"What is that painting?"
At last, the woman said,
"The first portrait ever painted in the world."
Maria asked,
"Whose face is it?"
The woman looked at the enormous painting.
"Mine."
Pierre swallowed.
"Then is that the true Mona Lisa?"
The woman shook her head.
"No."
"Then what is it?"
Fear spread across her face.
"The Mona Lisa was the second painting, created to hide that one."
Pierre's heart pounded.
"Why did it have to be hidden?"
The woman answered,
"Because I am still alive inside that painting."
At that moment, the cloth covering the enormous painting began to move slowly.
Ssshhh—
Though no one touched it, the cloth fell to the floor.
The painting was revealed.
Pierre.
Maria.
Matteo.
Jean.
Everyone froze.
There was no woman in the painting.
Instead—
it showed Pierre as he was now.
Pierre murmured,
"Why…… me?"
The Pierre in the painting slowly opened his eyes.
Then he looked at Pierre in reality.
"You've finally come."
The real Pierre stepped backward.
"Who are you?"
The Pierre in the painting smiled.
"The original."
"What does that mean?"
"The life you've lived until now is a painting I drew."
Pierre's face hardened.
The being in the painting extended a hand.
"It's time to switch places."
Then a black hand shot out of the enormous painting into reality.
It grabbed Pierre by the ankle.
"Brother!"
Maria grabbed Pierre.
Matteo raised the black brush.
Jean seized Pierre's arm.
But more hands emerged from the painting.
Pierre's body began to be dragged toward it little by little.
"Don't let go!"
Pierre shouted.
Maria cried out,
"I never will!"
At that moment, Pierre's mother shouted,
"Pick up the silver brush!"
Pierre reached toward the brush lying on the floor.
His fingertips barely touched it.
Silver light burst forth.
And a new sentence appeared on the brush.
Erase the original, and the copy disappears too.
Pierre read the sentence.
His face stiffened.
The original was the Pierre inside the painting.
The copy was himself in reality.
The Pierre in the painting smiled.
"That's right."
"If you erase me, you'll die too."
Maria screamed,
"There has to be another way!"
But the Pierre in the painting laughed even louder.
"Choose."
Half of Pierre's body had already been sucked into the painting.
"Will you live—"
The black hands dragged at his body.
"Or will you save the world?"
Pierre gripped the silver brush.
And for the first time, he understood why the Mona Lisa's last smile was called 'last.'
It wasn't the moment a woman's smile disappeared.
It was a painting that could only be completed when the last painter erased his own existence.
Pierre closed his eyes.
Then he raised the silver brush over the painting.
—End of Episode 10—