Silence.
Time halted. The wind froze mid-sigh. The rain no longer fell — droplets suspended in the air like fragments of broken glass.
Akihiro stood alone, his body heavy, blood still clinging to his skin like second flesh. The world around him had shattered into stillness.
Then, from behind the silence… a voice.
Soft. Female. Ageless.
"Akihiro Kurosawa."
He turned. A presence shimmered into view—pale robes, long silver hair like falling moonlight, and eyes that held ancient sorrow. Sanae.
The White Maiden.
She stood in the middle of a void shaped like nothing and everything at once — a place of memories and dreams, painted in monochrome.
"You are not beyond saving," she said gently.
Akihiro scoffed. "Saving?" His voice was a cracked blade. "You think I want that?"
"I offer you mercy," she said, stepping forward. "You can end this spiral. Your pain… it can be part of you, but it doesn't have to consume you. Let go. Be… human again."
"I am what they made me," Akihiro whispered. "Pain. Betrayal. Blood. That's who I am now."
Sanae's voice dropped, sad but steady. "No, Akihiro. You chose to become this. There was always another path."
He clenched his fists. The black-red aura flared around him.
"You don't understand."
"I do," she said. "That's why I came."
Without another word, Akihiro lunged — the void shattering into a white battlefield of light and ash.
Their powers collided.
Sanae moved like falling snow — swift, pure, effortless. Every attack of hers seemed to dissolve his rage, her aura attempting to heal with every strike.
But Akihiro was a storm. Black lightning. Red flame. Violence made sentient.
He fought like someone who didn't want victory — only domination.
Their battle stretched into hours — time meaningless in that frozen realm.
She whispered truths as they clashed:
"You're afraid of peace."
"You don't know who you are without pain."
"You're not a god, Akihiro. You're just a boy who doesn't know how to stop suffering."
And still he fought.
Until, finally — bloodied, broken, and trembling — he stood over her.
Sanae smiled through cracked lips.
"You still have a choice."
"I already made it."
He stabbed her through the heart — a blade made of his will and his hate.
She collapsed, light pouring from her wound like mist evaporating into a cold sun.
He knelt.
He bit into her neck — devouring her spirit. Her mercy. Her power.
As her essence entered him, he screamed — light and shadow warping his veins. His white hair glowed brighter at the tips, aura swirling violently.
When he opened his eyes, he was alone.
Back in the world.
And it was… different.
The rain had dried.
The streets had aged.
One month had passed.
Akihiro stumbled from the shelter, pulse racing.
Reika.
He remembered. He had asked her to stay.
He searched for her — his powers now enhanced, able to feel people's souls.
But hers wasn't there.
Not in the shelter.
Not at school.
He went to her house.
And found it.
Warm lights. Curtains drawn. Her family alive and well — unaware of what he had become.
He watched through the window.
She was there.
Smiling faintly. Talking. Still alive. Still... reachable.
But to Akihiro, that meant she had moved on.
Abandoned him.
A sickness rose in his chest. Jealousy. Possession.
He knocked on the door.
Reika's mother answered.
The scream lasted only a second.
Blood pooled into the carpet.
Then her father. Same fate.
No pain. No struggle. Just... erasure.
He stood there in the carnage when Reika returned home, her school bag still on her shoulder.
She dropped it the second she saw him — her knees hitting the ground.
"No…"
Her voice cracked.
He stared at her. Calm. Steady.
"I thought you said you'd stay," he said quietly.
Her eyes filled with rage.
"You killed them."
"You were slipping away."
"I'm not yours!" she screamed.
She charged him — fists flying, blind with grief. She hit him again and again.
Akihiro didn't move. Her punches did nothing to him now.
But he let her hit.
Because some part of him wanted to feel it.
Then his body began to blur.
Vanish.
His hair — once jet black — now streaked fully white at the ends, glowing faintly.
"I just wanted you to understand," he whispered.
Then he vanished into the night.
Leaving Reika sobbing in a house soaked in grief.