A roof collapsed to his left, sending a geyser of embers spiraling into the dark. Raizen veered right, slamming into a stone wall. Pain exploded into his shoulder, blood slicking his arm, but he didn't stop.
Suddenly, a Nyx stepped into his path.
Raizen's heart seized. The creature stood between two burning homes, its white eyes tracking something past him - a woman running. It didn't even glance at Raizen. He was three steps away, close enough to see the way darkness rippled across its form like black water, close enough to smell something like ice. Raizen froze again, every muscle locked.
Move.
The whisper again, felt gentle but its orders absolute.
Raizen threw himself into a dead sprint.
The village square opened ahead of him - or what was left of it. The bonfire had toppled, coals spreading across the ground like fiery wounds. Bodies lay scattered - some still, some trying to crawl. A man swung a fishing hatchet at a Nyx's legs. The creature caught the blade mid-swing and crushed it, metal screaming as it folded like cheap tin.
Raizen ran between them, barely dodging the hatchet. The Nyx could have reached out, could have grabbed him, but it didn't. It let him pass like he was invisible.
Raizen wove between the slaughter. He didn't wait for a voice to guide him – panic and adrenaline were better compasses. He vaulted over a fallen beam, his boots slipping on wet cobblestone, his ankle screaming in protest. He kept running.
Squeezing through a narrow alley, he tore his shirt on jagged wood, until he found himself standing in the open ground near the perimeter. The village wall loomed ahead, violently cracked and broken.
There. A gap.
Suddenly, his foot caught on something buried in the dirt - a plank, an old beam, a root, he didn't know. His body pitched forward and his hands shot out to catch himself. His palm slammed into a piece of shattered stone, slicing the skin deep. He bit down on his lip to trap the scream, tasting blood. He forced himself up, cradling his bleeding hand against his chest, and looked back.
And then the horrific reality set in.
He watched the Nyxes move through the ruins – they killed. They destroyed.
But not a single one of them was looking at him.
They were lettinghim go.
Raizen turned and shoved himself through the gap in the wall, plunging into the treeline. Branches whipped his face. Exposed roots tried to drag him down. He ran blindly until his lungs burned and his legs simply refused to hold his weight anymore.
Behind him, sounds cut off one by one. The sounds of fighting grew distant, muffled, replaced by something worse - silence creeping in like a flood.
He collapsed against the rough bark of an ancient oak, dragging air into his chest like he was drowning. Behind him, the village burned, painting the suffocating, unmoving layer of clouds in a sickly orange glow.
Everything was gone. He was entirely alone and entirely on his own.
Raizen tilted his head up towards the clouds. The sky was there, technically - he knew it was there – the white, fluffy cloud layer he had known all his life. Thick and unmoving, like someone didn't want them to see what lay after.
A long while ago, he stopped even wondering if there was even something after.
The whisper tugged at him again, gentler this time, almost patient. Time felt broken, stretched thin. Every shadow looked like a Nyx, every sound made him flinch.
Then, he saw her.
At first, he thought it was his fractured mind playing cruel games. A pale shape nestled between the massive tree roots. But as he dragged himself closer, she became real: Bright gold hair with ends black, as if dipped in ink, catching what little moonlight filtered through the clouds, rising smoke and trees. A simple white dress, impossibly clean, not mud-stained or torn. Her face was calm—too calm, like she wasn't sleeping in a nightmare, but had simply chosen to rest. She didn't look older than him. Fifteen, maybe a bit younger.
Raizen knelt beside her, his whole body shaking. He reached out with his good hand, terrified his fingers would pass right through an illusion.
He brushed her cheek. Her skin was warm, and a faint, steady exhale parted her lips.
She was alive.
I need you to…
The whisper returned, no longer cold but... Purposeful.
Take care of her.
It wasn't a request. It was a command, a thread connecting him to something he didn't understand.
But in the wreckage of everything, it gave him a reason to keep going.
He slipped his good arm under her shoulders and lifted. She was lighter than she looked, but for his battered body, it was sheer agony. His sliced hand screamed in protest, blood soaking into her pristine white dress, but he clenched his teeth and pulled her against his chest. Holding her felt like holding a shield against his own breaking mind and against the cruelness of the world
Through the trees ahead, a massive silhouette broke the skyline.
Neoshima. Even from here, the fortress looked impossible - massive metallic petals rising like a steel lotus against the night. He had never been there. Never imagined he'd need to. Only the merchants who came to his village for fish and herbs. Now, it was the only sanctuary left.
His legs trembled with every step. Every few minutes, he paused, pressing his ear close to her chest just to make sure her fragile heartbeat was still going. As long as the fragile sound continued, he kept moving.
The forest finally thinned, giving way to open fields cut by concrete paths, the tall grass swaying lightly in the wind. Neoshima's towering walls loomed over them, close enough now to see the cold rivets holding the steel together.
Unwelcoming… But safe.
He couldn't take another step. His vision tunneled, the world tilting violently. He clutched the girl tighter as he pitched forward onto the cold, hard path.
"I'll kill them," he wheezed to the empty air, the words tasting like ash and iron. A broken, pathetic sob caught in his ruined throat. "I'll kill them all."
The world faded away into darkness.
✦ ✦ ✦
The heavy thud of boots stopped on the concrete path.
The man who owned them carried war in his posture - broad shoulders, grey-streaked hair tied back, and a heavily scarred jawline. His mechanical arm clicked faintly, the servos whining as they adjusted to his sudden halt.
A boy lay bleeding on the path ahead, completely unconscious. In his arms, shielded fiercely against his chest, was a girl just about his age.
The veteran stared at the two children. His expression didn't change, but his mechanical fingers twitched, a phantom ache flared in a limb he no longer had. Without warning, a voice slipped into his mind.
Not his own thoughts - something else.
You failed your family once.
His flesh hand twitched toward the knives at his hip, fingers curling around one grip. But there was nothing to attack, no enemy to face. Just the whisper, already inside him, somehow too calm to fear.
...Don't fail again.
The man's breath stopped, his gaze dropping to the boy, then to the girl cradled in his arms.
He felt watched.
...Like someone – or something – hidden in the night knew what he'd buried his entire life, knew the mistakes he'd spent a decade trying to forget, and was offering him one chance - just one - to get it right this time.