The storm was no longer just thunder.
It had changed.
Now it was voices.
Each flash of lightning carried a cry. Each tear in the black sky groaned with words. Even the deep cracks of the chasm below rose up like a chorus of whispers and screams. And they weren't the voices of strangers.
They were his.
Every sound, every echo, belonged to him—countless versions of himself, scattered through time and memory. A thousand Kaïtos, each one broken in a different way, bleeding into the storm until the very air felt heavy with them, like smoke that clung to his skin and refused to leave.
Kaito walked forward, his scythe dragging at his side, leaving faint pale sparks that trailed across the broken stones. Each step felt heavier than the last. His chest throbbed with pain, weighed down by the shards he had already taken in, each one pressing against him like a fist striking his ribs from the inside.
